THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

CONFEDERATE 

WAR 


THE  HISTORY  OF  THE 

CONFEDERATE 

WAR 

ITS  CAUSES  AND  ITS  CONDUCT 

A  NARRATIVE  AND  CRITICAL  HISTORY 


BY 
GEORGE  CARY  EGGLESTON 


Volume  I 


STURGIS  &  WALTON 
COMPANY 

1910 

AU  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1910 
By  STURGIS  &  WALTON  COMPANY 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  March,  1910 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGB 

Paet  I. — ^The  Causes  of  the  Wae 

Introduction 3 

I.    A  Public,  Not  a  Civil  War 13 

II.    The  Growth  of  the  National  Idea    ...  19 

III.  The  "Irrepressible  Conflict"       ....  37 

IV.  The  Annexation  of  Texas 58 

V.    The  Compromise  of  1850 71 

VI.    Uncle  Tom's  Cabin     . 107 

VIL    The  Repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise, 
The  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  and  Squatter 

Sovereignty 112 

VIII.  The  Kansas  War— The  Dred  Scott  De- 
cision— John  Brown's  Exploit  at  Har- 
per's Ferry 122 

IX.    The  Election  of  1860 138 

X.    The  Birth  of  War 147 

Part  II. — The  Conduct  of  the  War 

XI.    The  Reduction  of  Fort  Sumter       ...  177 

XII.    The  Attitude  of  the  Border  States     .     .  194 

XIII.  "Pepper  Box"  Strategy 203 

XIV.  Manassas 215 

XV.    The  Paralysis  of  Victory 233 

XVI.    The  European  Menace 249 

XVII.    Border  Operations 256 

XVIII.    The    Blockade— The    Conquest    of    the 
Coast  and  the  Neglect  to  Follow  up  the 

Advantage  thus  Gained 261 

XIX.    The  Era  of  Incapacity 268 

V 


293171 


VI 


Contents 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

XX.  The  First  Appearance  of  Grant    .     .     .  278 
XXI.  The  Situation  Before  Shiloh     ....  282 
XXII.  Between  Manassas  and  Shiloh — The  Situ- 
ation in  Virginia     .......  293 

XXIII.  Shiloh 302 

XXIV.  New  Madrid  and  Island  Number  10    .     .  328 
XXV.    Farragut  at  New  Orleans 332 

XXVI.  McClellan's  Peninsular  Advance      ...  352 

XXVII.  Jackson's  Valley  Campaign       ....  363 

XXVIII.    The  Seven  Days'  Battles 397 

XXIX.  The  Second  Manassas  Campaign    .     .     .  414 

XXX.  Lee's  First  Invasion  of  Maryland        .     , 


PART  I 
THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  WAR 


Umy.  OF 

California 


INTRODUCTION 

The  Magnitude  of  the  Confederate  War 

During  the  years  from  1861  to  1865,  one  of  the 
greatest  wars  in  all  history  was  fought  in  this  country. 

There  were  in  all  three  million  three  hundred  and 
seventy-eight  thousand  men  engaged  in  the  fighting 
of  it. 

There  are  not  that  many  men  in  all  the  regular 
standing  armies  of  Europe  combined,  even  if  we  in- 
clude the  unpaid  hordes  of  Turkey  and  the  military 
myriads  of  the  armed  camp  known  to  geography 
as  Russia. 

The  actual  fighting  field  of  this  war  of  ours  was, 
larger  than  the  whole  of  western  Europe,  and  all  of 
it  was  trampled  over  and  fought  over  by  great  armies. 

The  men  killed  or  mortally  wounded  in  our  war 
numbered  on  the  Northern  side  alone  110,000.  The 
total  number  of  deaths  resulting  from  military  oper- 
ations on  the  Northern  side  alone  was  350,000.  The 
figures  for  the  Southern  side  are  not  accessible,  ow- 
ing to  the  loss  of  records.  But  as  the  fighting  was 
equally  determined  on  both  sides,  and  as  other  con- 
ditions were  substantially  equal,  it  is  certain  that  the 
losses  of  life  were  relatively  about  the  same  on  both 
sides.  It  is  well  within  the  facts,  therefore,  to  say 
that  this  war  of  ours  directly  caused  the  death  of 
more  than  half  a  million  men.     No  other  war  in 


•  •  •      • 


'4'**':'*.' ':Miiiory,^vf  the  Confederate  War 

modern  history  has  cost  so  many  lives  or  half  so 
many. 

We  hear  much  of  our  recent  war  with  Spain.  Let 
us  take  it  as  a  basis  of  comparison.  The  total  number 
of  men  even  nominally  called  into  the  field  in  that 
war  was  less  by  nearly  two  to  one  than  the  deaths 
alone  during  the  Confederate  war.  The  number  of 
men  who  were  actually  engaged  in  the  Spanish  war 
numbered  only  about  one  tenth  as  many  as  those  who 
were  buried  as  victims  of  the  Confederate  war's  bat- 
tle fields. 

Again,  the  total  number  of  men  killed  and  wounded 
during  the  Spanish  war — including  every  man  who 
was  touched  by  a  bullet  or  scratched  by  a  sword  or 
bayonet  thrust  or  hurt  by  a  splinter  at  sea — was  only 
two  hundred  sixty-eight.  That  is  fewer  than  the 
number  who  were  stricken  in  each  of  many  before- 
breakfast  skirmishes  of  the  Confederate  war,  some 
of  which  were  deemed  too  insignificant  to  be  reported 
to  headquarters  with  precision. 

Looking  for  higher  standards  of  comparison,  we 
find  that  43,449  men  fell  killed  or  wounded  at 
Gettysburg  alone.  That  is  almost  double  the  loss 
of  the  aUied  forces  at  Waterloo  and  probably  equal 
to  the  total  losses  on  both  sides  at  that  greatest  and 
most  decisive  of  European  battles. 

There  were  more  than  a  dozen  other  battles  of  the 
Confederate  war  which  in  slaughter  fairly  deserved 
comparison  with  Waterloo.  These  included  the 
Seven  Days'  battle  before  Richmond,  and  the  battles 
of  Fredericksburg,  Chancellorsville,  Antietam,  Shiloh, 
Chickamauga,  the  Wilderness,  Spottsylvania,  Cold 


Introduction      '  5 

Harbor,  the  Second  Manassas  (or  Bull  Run),  Stone 
River,  Petersburg,  Franklin,  Lookout  Mountain, 
Nashville  and  several  others. 

Still  another  measure  of  the  magnitude  of  a  war  is 
its  duration.  It  is  duration  indeed  that  chiefly  de- 
termines the  amount  of  human  suffering  caused  by 
a  war,  especially  to  the  women  and  children  who  are 
war's  chief  victims. 

Measured  by  this  test  of  duration  the  Confederate 
war  exceeded  all  other  recent  conflicts  in  the  magni- 
tude of  the  suffering  it  inflicted. 

Its  first  gun  was  fired  at  Fort  Sumter  in  April, 
1861:  its  last  armed  conflict  did  not  occur  until 
May,  1865.  Thus  for  four  years  and  a  month  the 
war  endured.  The  Crimean  war — one  of  the  longest 
of  nineteenth  century  conflicts — endured  for  less  than 
half  that  length  of  time  and  the  actual  fighting  of  it 
lasted  less  than  one  fourth  as  long.  The  duration  of 
the  Confederate  war  was  seven  times  as  great  as 
that  of  the  stupendous  Franco-Prussian  conflict  of 
1870,  which  overthrew  the  second  Napoleonic  empire, 
consolidated  Germany  and  made  the  republic  an  en- 
during fact  in  France.  It  was  twenty-four  times 
as  long  as  that  of  the  French- Austrian  war,  which 
set  Italy  free,  or  as  the  War  of  1866  between  Austria 
and  Prussia  which  laid  the  foundations  of  the  present 
German  empire. 

Measured  by  its  enduring  consequences  the  superior 
magnitude  of  our  war  in  its  influence  upon  national 
and  human  destinies  is  still  more  conspicuous. 

It  made  an  end  of  human  slavery  in  the  last  civil- 
ized country  on  earth  in  which  slavery  was  permitted. 


6  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

It  freed  the  nation  from  a  reproach  that  sorely- 
afflicted  its  citizens. 

It  ended  a  political  conflict  which  had  threatened 
the  very  foundations  of  the  Republic  from  the  hour 
of  its  institution. 

It  freed  the  Southern  States  of  the  Union  from 
an  incubus  that  their  statesmen  and  their  best  citizens 
had  for  generations  desired  to  be  rid  of,  an  incubus 
that  had  restricted  their  development  and  retarded 
their  growth  in  wealth  and  population  as  no  other 
evil  influence  had  ever  done  in  any  part  of  our 
country. 

Still  more  important  so  far  as  human  history  is 

coticerhed,  this  war  of  ours  settled  at  once  and  for- 

"ever,  the  vexed  and  vexatious  questions  of  constitu- 

fional  interpretation  that  had  beset  the  Republic  from 

the  hour  of  its  formation. 

It  revised  the  constitution  upon  new  lines  and  re- 
constructed the  Republic  in  ways  that  promise  per- 
manence. 

As  an  exhibition  of  national  military  capacity 
and  a  revelation  of  our  prodigious  possibilities  of 
armed  resistance,  it  taught  the  world  the  advisability 
and  indeed  the  absolute  necessity  of  letting  the 
United  States  alone,  as  the  one  unassailable  and  de- 
fensively irresistible  nation  on  earth. 

Finally  it  gave  to  the  American  people  a  realizing 
sense  of  their  own  limitless  power,  which  has  both 
strengthened  and  sobered  the  popular  mind,  reveal- 
ing to  it  the  nation's  limitless  ability  to  work  iniquity, 
and  awakening  it  to  the  Republic's  nobler  capacity — 
to  work  righteousness  instead. 


Introduction  7 

The  conflict  so  far  exalted  and  emphasized  the 
power  of  the  Republic  as  to  inspire  us  with  a  new 
generosity  of  forbearance  in  our  dealings  with  all 
other  nations.  It  made  it  easy  for  us  to  follow 
General  Grant's  rule  of  right  to  "deal  with  other 
nations  as  enlightened  law  requires  individuals  to  deal 
with  each  other." 

Incidentally  this  war  exhausted  and  impoverished 
the  South  as  no  other  war  ever  exhausted  and  im-"^ 
poverished  any  fruitful  land.  It  utterly  destroyed 
the  labor  system  of  those  states.  It  put  out  the  light 
"oFffiHr  prosjperity  for  a  time  and  left  their  people 
blindly  groping  for  sustenance.  It  destroyed  a  social 
fabric  of  exquisite  poise  and  picturesqueness  which 
had  endured  from  the  beginning  of  American  colon- 
ization. It  set  society  upon  its  head  in  the  South  and 
replaced  historic  order  with  inexpressible  chaos.  For 
a  time  it  substituted  for  a  traditional  government  by 
the  best,  an  actual  and  very  lawless  government  by 
the  worst  elements  of  society,  exalting  ignorance 
above  culture,  vice  over  virtue,  and  setting  a  horde 
of  half -savage  and  suddenly  emancipated  slaves  to 
direct  the  destinies  of  a  region  to  which  the  country 
had  always  reverently  looked  for  exalted  patriotism 
and  the  wisest  statesmanship — the  region  which  bad- 
produced  Washington  and  Jefferson  and  Madison 
and  Monroe ;  the  region  that  had  given  to  the  Republic 
that  greatest  and  wisest  of  the  jurists  of  the  modern 
world,  John  Marshall;  the  birthplace  of  Patrick 
Henry,  and  George  Wythe  and  George  Mason  and 
Henry  Clay. 

Anarchy  and  chaos  and  an  era  of  unspeakable  dis- 


8  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

order  succeeded  the  war  as  its  inevitable  consequence 
and  when  at  last  a  new  order  was  wrought  out  of 
these  disturbed  conditions,  all  that  was  characteristic 
of  the  old  South  had  completely  passed  away.  A 
new  era  had  dawned,  coming  as  a  posthumous  birth 
of  the  conflict  of  arms. 

A  revolution  had  been  wrought  in  the  social,  in- 
dustrial and  economic  conditions  of  a  fair  land.  It 
brought  with  it  a  new  material  prosperity  greater 
than  any  that  had  ever  been  dreamed  of  in  that  region 
before.  It  led  to  the  development  of  resources  that 
had  lain  dormant  for  generations.  In  agriculture 
alone,  the  South  produces  now  many  times  the  wealth 
each  year  that  had  been  dug  out  of  her  fields  under 
the  old  system.  The  very  greatest  cotton  crop  that 
was  ever  grown  before  the  war  amounted  to  4,669- 
770  bales;  since  1877  no  crop  so  small  has  been  grown 
in  any  year,  while  in  recent  years  the  crops  have 
reached  the  stupendous  total  of  more  than  12,000,000 
bales  in  each  year. 

Thus  the  old  staple  industry  has  doubled  and  treb- 
le JTls^oductiveness  under  the  influence  of  the  new 
industrial  conditions  created  by  the  war  and  by  the 
social  and  economic  revolution  which  the  war  wrought. 

But  this  is  a  small  part  of  the  matter.  Greatly 
as  the  yield  of  cotton  has  been  multiplied  under  the 
new  conditions,  cotton  has  ceased  to  be  king  even 
in  the  land  over  which  it  once  exercised  undisputed 
sway.  Other  and  humbler  agricultural  products — 
never  thought  of  in  the  old  planting  days  as  money 
crops — have  come,  in  their  value  to  rival  cotton  itself 
as  a  source  of  enrichment  to  Southern  agriculture. 


Introduction  9 

More  important  still,  the  new  conditions  that  were 
created  in  the  South  as  a  result  of  the  war  have 
led  to  the  development  there  of  resources  of  inestim- 
able value  which  were  wholly  neglected  under  the  old 
system.  The  little,  local,  loitering  railroad  lines  of 
the  older  time  have  been  combined  and  extended  and 
upbuilt  into  great  arteries  of  travel  and  traffic.  Prai- 
ries that  were  scratched  over  for  the  sake  of  meager 
cotton  crops  of  half  a  bale  to  the  acre  have  been 
delved  under  for  coal  and  iron.  Industrial  cities  of 
importance  have  arisen  where  cabins  remotely  stood. 
Blast  furnaces  have  replaced  the  breezes  that  once 
alone  disturbed  the  broom-straw  grass.  Iron  foun- 
dries, steel  mills,  machine  shops,  coke  ovens,  rolling 
mills  and  the  like  employ  men  by  tens  of  thousands 
where  before  only  a  few  hundreds  compelled  the  re- 
luctant soil  to  yield  them  a  precarious  living.  The 
still  unsubdued  pine  lands  are  dotted  all  over  with 
cotton  mills  which  give  work  and  wages  to  a  multi- 
tude and  the  magnitude  of  their  dividends  strongly 
tempts  capital  to  a  like  investment  elsewhere  in  the 
country  that  was  once  abundantly  content  to  produce 
a  raw  material  and  to  buy  back  the  finished  products 
of  it  from  factories  hundreds  or  thousands  of  miles 
away. 

The  harbors  of  the  South,  once  mere  ports  of  call 
or  refuge  for  a  shipping  that  belonged  elsewhere, 
have  become  the  seats  of  great  shipbuilding  and  ship- 
owning  enterprises  the  productiveness  of  which  is 
loosely  reckoned  by  imperfectly  counted  millions. 

Still  again,  under  the  new  conditions  resulting  from 
the  war,  great  industries  have  sprung  up  in  the  South 


10  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

which  find  both  their  profit  and  their  reason  for  being 
in  the  utiHzation  of  things  that  were  sheer  waste  un- 
der the  old  system.  The  manufacture  of  cotton  seed 
oil  and  its  rich  by-products  is  the  best  illustrative  ex- 
ample of  this.  It  employs  thousands  of  well  paid 
workmen  and  miUions  of  well  remunerated  capital 
in  converting  into  very  valuable  products  the  cotton 
seed  that  was  once  utilized  only  as  a  fertilizer  for  half - 
exhausted  soils. 

In  brief,  the  political  and  social  revolution  wrought 
Bj  the_  war  is  matched  and  over-matched  by  the  stu- 
^pendous  economic  revolution  produced,  a  revolution 
whose  rewards  to  industry,  to  capital  and  to  enter- 
prise are  such  as  the  wildest  visionary  would  have 
laughed  at  as  a  futile  dream  when  the  South  lay 
stripped  and  stricken  and  staggering  under  its  burden 
of  perplexities  at  the  end  of  a  struggle  which  had 
taxed  its  material  resources  to  the  point  of  exhaustion 
and  which  had  well-nigh  exterminated  its  vigorous 
young  manhood. 

It  is  to  tell  the  story  of  a  war  thus  stupendous  in  its 
causes,  its  events  and  its  consequences  that  this  book 
is  written.  There  is  nowhere  in  history  a  story  more 
dramatic,  more  heroic  or  more  intimately  inspired 
by  those  emotions  that  control  human  conduct  and 
work  out  the  events  of  human  life.  The  endeavor  in 
these  volumes  will  be  to  relate  that  story  with  absolute 
loyalty  to  truth. 

The  writer  of  these  pages  is  persuaded  that  the 
time  has  fully  come  when  this  may  be  acceptably 
done;  that  the  time  has  passed  away  when  any  Amer- 
ican of  well  ordered  mind  desires  the  perversion  or 


Introduction  11 

the  suppression  of  truth  with  respect  to  our  war  his- 
tory. There  is  certainly  nothing  in  that  history  of 
which  any  part  of  the  American  people  need  be 
ashamed. 

The  great  actors  in  the  drama  have  all  passed  away. 
The  passions  of  the  war  are  completely  gone.  Even 
in  politics,  war  prejudices  no  longer  play  a  part 
worth  considering.  The  time  seems  fully  come  when 
one  may  write  truth  with  regard  to  the  war  with 
the  certainty  of  a  waiting  welcome  for  his  words. 
The  time  has  come  which  General  Grant  foresaw 
in  1865,  when  he  predicted  that  the  superb  strategy 
and  unconquerable  endurance  of  Lee  and  the  brilliant 
military  play  of  Sherman,  the  splendid  prowess  of 
Stonewall  Jackson  and  the  picturesque  achievements 
of  Phil  Sheridan,  the  extraordinary  dash  and  enter- 
prise of  J.  E.  B.  Stuart  on  the  one  side  and  of  Custer 
on  the  other,  would  all  be  reckoned  a  common  pos- 
session in  the  storehouse  of  American  memory,  a 
subject  of  pride  and  satisfaction  wherever  there  might 
be  an  American  to  glory  in  the  deeds  of  his  country- 
men. 

The  time  has  come  when  the  prowess  of  the  Amer- 
ican soldier,  equally  on  the  one  side  and  upon  the 
other,  his  measureless  courage,  his  exhaustless  endur- 
ance, his  all-defiant  devotion  to  duty,  his  extraordinary 
steadiness  under  a  fire  such  as  few  soldiers  on  earth 
have  ever  been  called  upon  to  face,  his  patience  under 
long  marchings,  starvation  and  every  circumstance 
of  suffering,  are  subjects  of  justly  indiscriminate  ad- 
miration on  both  sides  of  a  geographical  line  long 
since  obliterated. 


12  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

The  story  of  Pickett's  charge  at  Gettysburg  may 
now  be  told  to  Northern  ears  as  surely  sympathetic 
with  the  heroism  shown  in  that  world-famous  action 
as  are  any  ears  at  the  South.  The  heroic  tale  of  the 
Federal  assaults  upon  Marye's  Heights  at  Fred- 
ericksburg where  brave  men,  knowing  the  futility  of 
their  endeavors,  obeyed  orders  and  went  to  their 
deaths  by  thousands  because  it  was  their  duty  to  do 
so  may  now  be  told  to  listening  Southern  ears  with 
as  absolute  certainty  of  applause  as  if  the  story 
were  related  only  to  veterans  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac. 

"East  is  East,  and  West  is  West"  writes  Kipling 
in  one  of  his  finest  ballads  in  celebration  of  generous 
personal  courage.  Paraphrasing,  we  may  say: 
"North  is  North  and  South  is  South,"  but  courage, 
heroism,  devotion  and  a  generous  chivalry  belong  to 
no  time  and  no  country  exclusively.  They  are  the 
common  possessions  of  all  worthy  manhood.  Like 
the  gold  beneath  the  guinea's  stamp  they  pass  current 
wherever  coined  because  their  value  is  inherent. 


CHAPTER  I 

A  Public^  not  a  Civil,  War 

The  war  of  1861-65  was  in  fact  a  revolution. 
Had  the  South  succeeded  in  the  purposes  with  which 
that  war  was  undertaken  it  would  have  divided  the 
American  Republic  into  two  separate  and  independent 
confederations  of  states,  the  Union  and  the  Southern 
Confederacy.  The  North  having  succeeded,  no  such 
division  was  accomplished,  but  none  the  less  was  a 
revolution  wrought  as  has  been  suggested  in  the 
introductory  chapter  of  this  work. 

Familiarly,  and  by  way  of  convenience,  we  are 
accustomed  to  call  this  "The  Civil  war,"  in  contra- 
distinction from  those  other  wars  in  which  the  Ameri- 
can power  has  been  arrayed  against  that  of  foreign 
nations.  But  the  term  "Civil  war,"  as  thus  applied, 
is  neither  accurate  nor  justly  descriptive.  In  all 
that  is  essential  to  definition  this  was  a  public  and  not 
a  civil  war  and  it  is  necessary  to  a  just  understanding 
of  the  struggle  and  its  outcome  to  bear  this  fact  in 
mind.  Otherwise  the  entire  attitude  and  conduct  of 
the  Federal  government  toward  its  antagonist  must 
be  inexplicable,  inconsistent  and  wanting  in  dignity. 
.  The  Southern  States  asserted  and  undertook  to 
maintain  by  a  resolute  appeal  to  arms,  their  right  to 
an  independent  place  among  the  nations  of  the  earth. 
In  the  end  they  failed  in  that  endeavor.    But  while 

13 


14  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

the  conflict  lasted  they  so  far  maintained  their  con- 
tention as  to  win  from  their  adversary  a  sufficient 
recognition  of  their  attitude  to  serve  all  the  purposes 
of  public  rather  than  civil  war. 

They  instituted  and  maintained  a  government, 
with  a  legislature,  an  executive,  a  judiciary,  a  de- 
partment of  state,  an  army,  a  navy,  a  treasury,  and 
all  the  rest  of  the  things  that  independent  nations  set 
up  as  the  official  equipment  of  their  national  house- 
keeping. 

Not  only  did  foreign  powers  recognize  their  right 
to  make  war,  not  as  rebels  but  as  legitimate  belliger- 
ents entitled  to  all  the  consideration  that  the  laws  of 
civilized  war  guarantee  to  nations,  but  the  United 
States  government  itself  made  similar  recognition 
of  the  South's  status  as  a  power  possessed  of  the  right 
to  make  war. 

At  the  outset  there  was  quibbling  of  course,  and 
a  deal  of  playing  for  position.  But  in  view  of  the 
obvious  facts  all  this  quickly  gave  way  to  a  perfectly 
frank  recognition  on  both  sides  of  the  truth  that  there 
was  legitimate  public  war  between  the  North  in  the 
name  of  the  Union  and  the  South  organized  as  the 
Southern  Confederacy;  that  the  struggle  involved 
the  question  of  the  independence  of  the  South  on  the 
one  hand  and  the  indissolubility  of  the  Federal  Union 
on  the  other;  that  the  conflict  was  the  result  of  an  en- 
tirely legitimate  appeal  to  arms  for  the  decision  of 
questions  which  no  other  arbitrament  could  decide; 
and  that  the  contest  must  be  fought  out  not  as  a 
struggle  between  constituted  authority  on  the  one 
hand   and    insurrection    on    the    other    but    as    a 


A  Public,  not  a  Civil,  War  15 

controversy  between  two  powers,  each  of  which  was 
legitimately  entitled  to  assert  its  contentions  and  to 
maintain  its  attitude  by  every  means  known  to 
civilized  war. 

All  this  was  reflected,  while  the  war  lasted,  in  the 
treatment  of  men  captured  on  either  side  as  prisoners 
of  war ;  in  negotiations  for  the  exchange  of  prisoners 
with  full  recognition  of  military  rank  on  either  side; 
in  the  issue,  the  observance  and  the  enforcement  of 
paroles;  in  safe  conducts  frequently  granted  and 
always  honorably  ^respected ;  in  agreements  for  the  im- 
munity from  arrest  of  medical  officers  and  other  non- 
combatants  ;  in  the  humane  and  civilized  arrangements 
made  between  opposing  generals  for  the  equal  care  of 
the  wounded  of  either  army  by  the  surgeons  of  both, 
and  in  a  score  or  a  hundred  other  ways. 

And  when  the  war  was  over  both  sides  fully  recog- 
nized and  emphasized  its  character  as  a  legitimate 
public  war  and  not  in  any  respect  as  an  insurrection. 
When  the  broken  fragments  of  the  organized  armies 
of  the  South  surrendered,  there  was  an  end  of  the 
controversy.  The  Southern  people  made  no  effort 
to  prolong  the  struggle  in  irregular  ways,  as  they 
easily  might  have  done.  They  set  their  faces  against 
all  attempts  to  inaugurate  a  guerilla  warfare,  a  thing 
which  would  have  been  easy  to  them.  Under  the  ad- 
vice of  General  Lee  and  their  other  great  leaders  the 
soldiers  of  the  Confederacy  accepted  the  surrender  of 
the  Confederate  armies  as  a  sovereign  act  that  made 
an  end  not  only  of  the  war  but  of  their  right  to  make 
war.  By  their  immediate  return  to  ways  of  peace 
and  by  their  sincere  acceptance  of  the  terms  offered 


16  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

in  Mr.  Lincoln's  promptly  issued  amnesty  proclama- 
tion they  marked  and  emphasized  their  view  that  they 
had  been  engaged,  not  in  a  disorderly  insurrection, 
but  in  a  legitimate,  public  war,  the  military  end  of 
which  marked  the  end  of  their  right  to  carry  on 
hostilities  of  any  kind  or  character. 

Equally  on  the  other  side,  the  public  character  of 
the  war  was  recognized  by  every  act  of  the  govern- 
ment. There  was  not  even  one  prosecution  for  treason. 
Congress  imposed  upon  the  Southern  States  definite 
legislative  duties  as  a  condition  precedent  to  the  re- 
admission  of  those  states  to  the  Union,  thus  emphat- 
ically recognizing  the  fact  that  during  the  progress 
of  the  war  they  had  actually  been  out  of  the  Union, 
and  could  be  readmitted  to  it  only  upon  terms  pre- 
scribed by  a  congress  representing  those  states  which 
had  remained  in  it.  In  these  and  a  hundred  other 
ways— and  especially  by  means  of  that  long  military 
occupation  of  the  South  which  ended  only  under  the 
Hayes  administration — the  national  government  re- 
cognized the  fact  that  there  had  been  a  legitimate 
public  war  between  the  two  sections  and  not  merely 
an  insurrection  with  the  military  operations  necessary 
to  its  suppression. 

A  failure  to  recognize  these  things  would  have  been 
absurd  and  ridiculous  in  an  extreme  degree.  It 
would  have  been  to  ignore  the  most  obvious  facts  in 
modern  history  and  to  substitute  a  lot  of  lawyers' 
quibbhng  prevarications  for  the  modern  world's  great- 
est wonder  story  of  war.  It  would  have  been  to  regard 
a  dozen  or  twenty  of  the  greatest  battles  ever  fought 
on  earth  as  the  conflicts  of  a  sheriff's  posse  with  tur- 


A  Public,  not  a  Civile  War  17 

bulent  gangs  of  rioters.  It  would  have  been  to  treat 
as  merely  disorderly  outbreaks  and  operations  for 
their  suppression,  the  great  military  campaigns  which 
have  passed  into  history  as  superbly  illustrative,  on 
the  one  side  and  upon  the  other,  of  all  that  is  most 
brilliant  in  strategy  and  all  that  is  most  heroic  in 
endeavor  and  in  endurance.  It  would  have  been  to 
discredit  the  national  defense  by  belittling  the  oc- 
casion for  it.  It  would  have  been  to  rub  oiF  the  tablets 
of  human  memory  equally  the  achievements  of  Grant 
and  Meade  and  Sherman  and  Thomas  and  Farragut 
and  the  rest,  and  the  record  of  what  Lee  and  Jackson 
and  Beauregard  and  the  two  Johnstons  and  Stuart  and 
Early  and  Longstreet  had  done.  It  would  have  been 
to  rob  the  nation  of  the  credit  it  had  won  in  the  most 
strenuous  conflict  in  which  it  had  ever  been  engaged 
and  of  the  glory  of  the  genius  and  the  heroism  mani- 
fested by  Americans  upon  either  side.  It  would  have 
been  a  perversion  of  history,  a  degradation  of  great 
deeds,  a  reckless  wasting  of  the  Nation's  accumulated 
store  of  cherished  memories  of  heroism. 

We  must  bear  these  truths  in  mind  if  we  are  rightly 
to  understand  the  great  struggle  which  for  conven- 
ience and  quite  incorrectly  we  call  the  Civil  war.  We 
must  remember  that  it  was  a  struggle  of  giants ;  that 
it  was  a  conflict  between  two  powers,  each  of  which 
was  possessed  of  a  tremendous  fighting  capacity;  that 
it  called  forth  the  most  brilliant  strategy  of  modern 
times  that  it  was  inspired  on  both  sides  by  a  heroism 
worthy  of  celebration  in  song  by  the  most  gifted  of 
ballad-makers ;  that  it  involved  the  very  vitals  of  re- 
publican self -government  among  men ;  that  it  wrought 


18  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

a  revolution  more  stupendous,  more  far-reaching 
and  more  lasting  in  its  effects  than  any  other  in  re- 
corded history;  that  it  overthrew  old  institutions  and 
created  new  ones  in  their  stead;  that  it  reversed  the 
history  of  a  hundred  years;  that  it  wrote  anew  the 
fundamental  law  of  the  greatest  nation  of  all  time; 
that  it  created  a  new  epoch  and  made  a  new  national 
power  the  dominant  force  and  influence  in  the  order- 
ing of  human  affairs. 

Only  by  such  appreciation  of  the  nature,  the  mag- 
nitude and  the  significance  of  our  war,  shall  we  justly 
estimate  its  place  in  the  record  of  human  affairs  or 
properly  understand  the  meaning  it  is  destined  to 
carry  with  it  into  history. 

It  is  with  an  abiding  conviction  that  the  story  of 
this  war  is  the  most  precious  memory  of  all  the  Amer- 
ican people,  the  record  of  their  highest  achievements, 
the  supreme  demonstration  of  their  right  to  a  fore- 
most place  among  the  peoples  of  the  earth  that  this 
telling  of  that  story  is  undertaken. 


CHAPTER  II 

The  Growth  of  the  National  Idea 

The  causes  of  the  war  of  1861-65  were  deeply  im- 
bedded in  the  history  of  the  country,  in  the  peculiar 
manner  of  its  development,  in  the  complex  interests 
of  men,  and  in  those  primary  instincts  of  human 
nature  which  account  for  everything  but  which  are 
themselves  often  unaccountable. 

It  is  difficult,  indeed  it  is  impossible  to  trace  and 
unravel  to  the  full  the  influences  which  in  1861 
brought  the  North  and  South  into  armed  conflict 
and  created  a  war  of  stupendous  proportions  be- 
tween men  who  had  for  generations  rejoiced  in  a 
common  heritage  of  liberty;  men  who  had  cherished 
alike  the  memory  of  Bunker  Hill  and  Yorktown; 
men  who  had  worshiped  the  same  household  gods 
and  honored  the  same  heroes  as  their  national  demi- 
gods; men  to  whom  the  history  of  the  Republic  was, 
to  all  alike  on  both  sides,  the  story  of  their  fathers' 
and  grandfathers'  heroic  deeds. 

Yet  if  the  historical  event  of  1861  is  to  be  at  all 
adequately  understood  or  interpreted,  the  historian 
must  in  some  degree  at  least  discover  the  conditions, 
near  and  remote,  that  gave  occasion  for  the  strange 
catastrophe. 

There  is  a  short  and  easy  method  of  dealing  with 
the  matter  as  there  always  is  a  short  and  easy  method 
■"   ^  "  "    ""  ■■'"" ■■  i9 


20  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

of  solving  historical  puzzles  by  referring  them  to 
some  complex  cause  and  treating  that  cause  as  a 
^matter  of  the  utmost  simplicity.  It  is  easy  to  say 
that  the  war  of  1861-65  grew  out  of  slavery;  that  slav- 
ery existed  and  was  defended  at  the  South  while 
it  was  antagonized  at  the  North,  and  that  the  conflict 
arose  out  of  that.  But  no  reader  of  intelligence  is 
satisfied  with  such  a  reference  as  a  substitute  for  ex- 
planation. Every  such  reader  knows  not  only  that 
the  great  and  overwhelming  majority  of  Northern 
people  in  1861  would  have  angrily  rejected  a  pro- 
posal that  the  nation  should  wage  a  war  for  the 
extermination  of  slavery  in  the  states  in  which  it 
legally  existed.  Every  reader  who  is  in  the  least  in- 
structed in  the  history  of  that  time  knows  that  Mr. 
Lincoln  himself  was  at  the  utmost  pains  to  avoid 
even  the  appearance  of  such  a  purpose  and  that  dur- 
ing nearly  half  the  period  of  the  war's  duration  he 
resolutely  refused  to  commit  the  government  to  that 
cause  by  issuing  a  proclamation  of  emancipation,  even 
as  a  measure  helpful  to  the  national  arms. 

Instead  of  this  short  and  easy  catechism  of  causes 
which  has  satisfied  so  many,  especially  those  for- 
eigners who  have  more  or  less  ignorantly  written  as 
historians  or  critics  of  our  war,  it  is  necessary  to  go 
back  to  the  early  history  of  the  country,  to  study 
there  the  conditions  that  laid  the  foundations  of  dis- 
cord, to  find  in  the  fundamental  characteristics  of 
human  nature  and  in  the  varying  self-interests  of 
men  the  explanation  of  events  that  are  otherwise  in- 
explicable. 

The  American  colonies  were  separately  founded. 


The  Growth  of  the  National  Idea  21 

Their  settlers  were  persons  of  very  diverse  mind  and 
often  of  hostile  interest  but  they  were  all  inspired 
by  an  abiding  sense  of  the  main  chance.  The  mi- 
nutely studious  historians  who  have  written  in  our 
later  time  have  differed  in  many  things  but  they  are  all 
agreed  that  the  early  settlers  upon  these  shores, 
whether  in  Virginia  first  or  in  New  York  a  httle  later 
or  in  New  England  still  later,  were  not  heroes  of 
romance  blown  hither  by  adverse  winds  of  fate  or 
by  the  buffeting  of  the  gods,  but  plain,  ordinary  and 
very  commonplace  men,  ignorant  for  the  most  part, 
narrow-mindedly  selfish,  and  altogether  intent  upon 
the  bettering  of  their  own  fortunes  as  the  chief  end 
of  human  life.  The  higher  inspirations  which  we 
are  accustomed  to  attribute  to  them  in  our  American 
Aeneid  did  not  exist.  Those  things  were  born  later 
of  admiring  imagination  as  higher  aspirations  usually 
are  in  the  discussion  of  national  beginnings. 

The  colonies  were  far  more  remote  from  each  other 
than  we  can  easily  conceive.  From  Boston  to  Wil- 
liamsburg in  the  seventeenth  century  was  a  journey 
more  difficult,  more  toilsome  and  more  dangerous 
than  a  circling  of  the  globe  is  in  our  time.  And 
even  in  the  eighteenth  century  Charleston  in  South 
Carolina  was  farther  removed  from  Charlestown  in 
Massachusetts  than  either  is  to-day  from  Yokahama 
or  Hong  Kong. 

This  element  of  remoteness  cannot  be  too  much 
insisted  upon  as  a  cause  of  estrangement  between  the 
widely  separated  colonies.  The  means  of  communi- 
cation between  the  several  settlements  of  English- 
speaking  people  were  few  and  meager  and  painfully 


22  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

uncertain.  There  were  no  railroads,  no  steamships, 
no  telegraphs,  and  in  effect  no  mails.  For  not  until 
Franklin  near  the  revolutionary  epoch  laid  the  rude 
foundations  of  our  postal  system,  was  there  any  tol- 
erably trustworthy  post  in  this  land.  We  find  in  old 
letters  Abigail  Adams  in  Boston  apologizing  to  her 
statesman  husband  in  Philadelphia  for  having  allowed 
three  weeks  to  elapse  without  a  letter  and  offering  as 
a  sufficient  excuse  the  fact  that  during  those  weeks 
she  had  "found  no  opportunity"  to  send  a  letter,  no 
"trustworthy  hand  going  from  these  parts  to  yours." 
And  she  and  other  correspondents  of  that  time  whose 
letters  have  been  preserved  as  precious  historical  ma- 
terial, refer  frequently  to  the  public  post  as  a  means 
of  communication  to  which  no  rational  person  would 
think  of  entrusting  letters  of  any  consequence. 

In  the  same  way  Eliza  Lucas,  afterwards  Eliza 
Pinckney  and  the  mother  of  distinguished  revolu- 
tionary personages,  excuses  her  neglect  to  send  let-' 
ters  from  James  island  to  her  intimates  on  the  Cooper 
river — twenty-five  miles  .away — on  the  plea  that  she 
had  no  trustworthy  opportunity  and  that  the  post 
was  not  to  be  thought  of. 

In  still  further  illustration  is  the  fact  recorded  by 
Franklin  in  his  autobiography,  that  when  his  rival 
in  the  business  of  newspaper  publishing  had  control 
of  the  posts,  he  seriously  embarrassed  Franklin  by 
refusing  to  deliver  his  newspaper  to  its  subscribers. 
And  it  was  a  source  of  pride  to  Franklin  that  when 
he,  himself,  became  Postmaster  General  he  gener- 
ously refused  to  retaliate  upon  his  rival  by  denying 
him  in  his  turn  the  privileges  of  the  mails. 


The  Growth  of  the  National  Idea  23 

In  these  conditions  it  is  not  difficult  to  understand 
that  even  as  the  revolutionary  times  approached,  the 
interchange  of  thought,  opinion  and  sentiment  among 
the  people  of  the  several  colonies  was  infrequent 
and  very  meager  and  that  during  the  previous,  form- 
ative century  it  had  scarcely  at  all  existed. 

It  is  true  that  the  immigrants  who  founded  the 
several  colonies  were  mainly  Englishmen.  But  dur- 
ing a  century  and  a  half  of  remotely  separate  devel- 
opment, they  had  had  ample  time  for  estrangement 
of  mind  and  for  the  breeding  of  very  radical  differ- 
ences of  interest,  aspirations  and  opinions.  The 
really  astonishing  thing  about  their  history  is  that 
after  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  or  more  of  this  di- 
versely conditioned  development  there  was  left 
enough  community  of  thought  and  interest  among 
the  colonists  to  make  possible  their  alliance  for  rev- 
olutionary purposes. 

That  alliance  was  of  the  loosest  possible  character, 
marked  in  every  detail  of  its  terms  by  a  jealousy 
almost  phenomenal.  The  first  agreement  of  the  col- 
onies to  act  together  for  the  common  defense  was 
as  loose  as  the  hurrah  of  a  mob  bound  together  only 
by  a  temporary  purpose  in  common.  It  was  not  until 
the  Revolutionary  war  was  well  advanced  that  even 
the  articles  of  confederation  were  agreed  upon,  and 
they  were  about  the  flimsiest,  most  inadequate  and 
most  inefficient  bond  of  union  that  ever  served  to  ally 
states  for  a  common  purpose.  Those  articles  of  con- 
federation set  out  with  a  formal  and  emphatic 
reservation  to  each  state  of  its  absolute,  individual 
sovereignty   and   independence — that   being  at  the 


24  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

time  the  one  thing  which  each  of  the  revolted  states 
cherished  with  the  most  sleepless  jealousy.  They  left 
to  each  of  the  states  the  unrestricted  right  to  do  as  it 
pleased  in  all  matters  of  sovereign  concern. 

The  avowed  purpose  of  the  confederation  was  to 
create  a  national  government  but  the  articles  of  con- 
federation distinctly  denied  to  the  central  power  every 
right  and  function  necessary  to  governmental  activity 
and  independence.  The  so-called  general  government 
could  not  levy  any  tax,  enforce  any  impost,  or  in  any 
other  way  provide  for  the  raising  of  money,  the 
payment  of  national  debts,  the  organization  of  armies, 
the  enforcement  of  treaties  or  even  the  uniform  va- 
lidity of  statutory  enactments. 

Even  in  the  act  of  creating  a  central  power  for 
the  sake  of  the  common  safety,  the  several  states  were 
so  jealous  of  their  separate  independence  that  they 
resolutely  refused  to  give  to  their  general  govern- 
ment any  power  whatever  to  control  the  individual 
states  or  the  people  thereof,  even  to  the  meager  ex- 
tent of  enforcing  the  national  agreements  with  other 
powers. 

The  Congress — there  being  no  executive  possessed 
of  any  power — was  authorized  to  call  upon  the  several 
states  for  contributions  of  men  and  money  for  the 
common  defense.  But  it  was  a  case  parallel  with 
Owen  Glendower's  ability  to  "call  spirits  from  the 
vasty  deep."  The  question  remained  "will  they 
come?"  And  that  question  each  state  decided  for 
itself. 

If  we  would  at  all  understand  the  history  of  our 
country  we  must  bear  in  mind  this  intense,  this  reso- 


The  Growth  of  the  National  Idea  25 

lute,  this  utterly  uncompromising  insistence  of  the 
several  states  at  the  beginning  upon  their  separate 
sovereignty. 

It  was  in  this  spirit  that  independence  was 
achieved  and  the  independence  thus  won  was  not  the 
independence  of  a  federated  republic,  but  that  of 
thirteen  individual  and  widely  separated  states,  no 
one  of  which  owed  any  sort  of  allegiance  to  any  other 
or  to  all  the  others  combined;  no  one  of  which  was 
ready  upon  any  consideration  to  yield  one  jot  or 
tittle  of  its  independent  sovereignty  to  the  will  of 
any  other  or  of  all  the  others. 

The  states,  indeed,  were  as  jealous  of  trespass  by 
each  other  as  of  trespass  by  Great  Britain  herself. 

We  are  accustomed  to  think  of  them  as  closely 
united  commonwealths,  engaged  in  a  long  and  pain- 
ful struggle  for  the  independence  of  the  American 
Federal  Republic.  They  were  nothing  of  the  kind. 
They  were  separate  and  diversely  interested  states 
each  fighting  for  its  own  emancipation  from  a  foreign 
yoke.  They  were  allied  in  a  common  cause,  but  their 
alliance  had  no  bond  more  obligatory  upon  themselves 
than  is  that  which  unites  a  mass  meeting  whose  con- 
stituent members  are  possessed  temporarily  of  a  com- 
mon purpose. 

When  the  states  had  achieved  their  independence, 
they  undertook  to  live  together  in  the  loosely  formed 
union  thus  provided.  They  quickly  found  it  impos- 
sible to  do  so.  Not  only  was  their  central  government 
powerless  to  fulfil  its  obligations  to  other  countries, 
or  to  pay  its  debts  at  home,  or  to  enforce  its  authority, 
or  to  levy  and  collect  taxes,  or  to  provide  securely 


26  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

and  properly  for  the  maintenance  of  an  army,  a  navy, 
a  postal  service  or  anything  else  of  a  national  char- 
acter or  to  do  with  certainty  and  authority  any  other 
of  the  things  which  a  nation  that  expects  respect  may 
and  must  do,  but  it  could  not  in  any  effective  way 
regulate  trade  either  with  foreign  countries  or  be- 
tween the  states.  Each  state  had  the  reserved  right  to 
interfere  with  the  transit  of  goods  across  its  borders 
in  ways  that  threatened  presently  to  render  trade 
among  the  states  impossible. 

It  was  in  view  of  these  distressing  conditions  that 
the  statesmen  of  Virginia  appealed  to  those  of  the 
other  states  for  a  conference  looking  to  the  devising 
of  a  better  way,  "a  more  perfect  Union."  The  con- 
ference thus  called  at  Annapolis  was  attended  by 
representatives  from  only  five  of  the  states.  But  it 
led  to  the  calling  of  that  Philadelphia  Convention 
which,  under  Washington's  presidency,  and  with  the 
united  wisdom  of  the  most  sagacious  statesman  in  all 
the  commonwealths,  framed  the  Federal  Constitution. 

The  task  was  one  of  extraordinary  difficulty.  The 
old  jealousies  of  the  states  remained  in  scarcely 
abated  force.  Each  feared  to  surrender  any  part  of 
its  sovereignty.  Each  dreaded  the  possible  interfer- 
ence of  the  others  with  its  domestic  concerns.  Each 
feared  and  dreaded  a  national  power  that  might 
some  day  control  a  state's  actions  and  coerce  it  into  an 
obedience  derogatory  to  its  sovereignty.  The  less 
populous  states  feared  the  possible  dominance  of  the 
more  populous,  and  all  of  them  alike  feared  the 
possibly  oppressive  power  of  a  national  executive. 

After  months  of  such  labor  as  statesmen  have  rarely 


The  Growth  of  the  National  Idea  27 

given  to  the  framing  of  a  fundamental  law,  all  these 
differences  were  adjusted  and  in  a  considerable  de- 
gree, though  not  wholly,  the  individual  apprehensions 
of  the  several  states  were  allayed. 

The  equal  representation  of  states  as  such,  without 
reference  to  the  numbers  of  their  population,  was 
provided  for  in  the  peculiar  constitution  of  the  Sen- 
ate, in  the  organization  of  the  electoral  college  which 
chooses  the  president  and  still  again  in  the  provision 
of  the  Constitution  that  in  case  of  no  election  to  the 
presidency  the  choice  shall  be  left  to  the  popular  house 
of  Congress,  but  with  the  express  condition  that  each 
state's  representatives  in  that  body,  however  numer- 
ous or  however  few,  shall  have  one  and  only  one  vote. 

Again  the  Constitution  reflected  the  jealousy  of 
the  several  states  for  their  sovereignty  by  providing 
specifically  that  all  powers  not  delegated  by  the  states 
to  the  general  government  by  the  terms  of  that  in- 
strument should  be  reserved  to  the  states  or  to  the 
people  thereof. 

Notwithstanding  all  these  precautionary  measures 
and  notwithstanding  all  the  reservations  made,  two 
of  the  states  withheld  their  assent  to  the  Constitution 
for  a  year  or  two  after  it  was  accepted  by  the  rest, 
and  in  other  states  the  vote  by  which  it  was  ratified 
showed  a  very  narrow  margin  in  its  favor.  Even  in 
Virginia,  the  state  which  had  originally  suggested  the 
union  under  the  Constitution,  whose  Washington  had 
presided  over  the  convention  that  framed  it,  whose 
Jefferson  and  Madison  and  other  statesmen  had 
strenuously  advocated  it,  the  influence  of  the  most 
potential  statesmen  of  that  period  was  barely  suffi- 


28  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

cient  to  secure  an  affirmative  vote  by  a  slender  major- 
ity in  favor  of  the  adoption  of  that  Constitution 
which  made  the  United  States  a  nation  and  gave  to 
their  government  a  recognized  place  among  world 
powers. 

In  brief  the  people  of  the  original  thirteen  states 
very  reluctantly  surrendered  a  narrowly  restricted 
part  of  the  functions  of  sovereignty  to  the  Federal 
Government.  They  very  jealously  reserved  to  them- 
selves as  individual  states  all  the  other  functions  of 
sovereignty  and  independence.  And  even  with  such 
restrictions  and  such  reservations  they  gravely  hesi- 
tated before  making  a  grant  of  power  which  threat- 
ened the  possible  use  of  the  Federal  Authority  in 
control  of  a  state's  action  or  in  restraint  of  a  state's 
sovereign  independence. 

This  was  the  spirit  in  which  the  National  Govern- 
ment was  formed.  It  was  intended  to  be  a  govern- 
ment for  external  and  communal  purposes  only.  By 
every  provision  which  the  ingenuity  of  statesmanship 
could  devise  the  General  Government  was  restrained 
from  trespassing  upon  the  sovereign  right  of  each 
state  to  regulate  in  its  own  way  and  by  its  own 
devices  all  matters  not  distinctly  delegated  to  the 
General  Government  by  the  express  terms  of  the 
Constitution. 

For  half  a  century  after  the  adoption  of  the  Con- 
stitution, this  view  everywhere  prevailed  and  was 
everywhere  recognized  as  authoritative.  When,  dur- 
ing the  War  of  1812-15,  New  England  found  that  the 
course  of  the  General  Government  antagonized  the 
local  interests  of  that  region,  the  states  in  that  quar- 


The  Growth  of  the  National  Idea  29 

ter  of  the  country  opposed  the  national  policy  even 
to  the  extent  of  threatening  a  withdrawal  from  the 
Union — secession  in  other  words,  and  nullification. 
It  was  Daniel  Webster — afterwards  the  apostle  of 
"Liberty  and  Union,  now  and  forever,  one  and  in- 
separable"— who  drew  and  championed  the  Rocking- 
ham Memorial  in  1812,  in  which  his  New  England 
constituency  formally  protested  against  the  war  then 
existing  with  England  and  by  unmistakable  implica- 
tion threatened  secession  and  a  separate  peace  with 
England  on  the  part  of  the  maritime  states  in  the 
northeastern  part  of  the  country.  And  immediately 
afterwards  Webster  was  elected  to  Congress  where, 
with  the  approval  of  that  part  of  the  country,  he  op- 
posed all  measures  designed  to  encourage  enlistments 
at  a  time  when  the  country  was  engaged  in  foreign 
war.  He  even  went  so  far  as  to  vote  against  the  ap- 
propriations for  the  national  military  defense  against 
the  country's  ancient  foe,  at  that  time  engaged  in  an 
effort  to  undo  and  reverse  the  results  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary war  itself. 

Senator  Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  writing  of  this  in- 
cident, expresses  the  opinion  that  it  was  an  extreme 
stretch  of  the  liberty  of  legislative  opposition  to  the 
administration  in  a  time  of  war  and  public  danger  and 
that  it  carried  the  right  of  opposition  to  the  utmost 
limit  to  which  it  could  go  without  treason. 

Yet  at  the  time  nothing  very  serious  was  thought 
of  the  matter  for  the  reason  that  at  that  time  the  in- 
dividual state  and  not  the  National  Government  was 
regarded  as  the  primary  and  ultimate  object  of  men's 
allegiance. 


30  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

The  states  felt  themselves  to  be  still  only  con- 
ditionally and  tentatively  members  of  the  Union. 
They  were  still  intensely  jealous  of  their  individual 
sovereignty,  and  they  were  still  indisposed  to  make 
serious  sacrifice  of  their  own  interests  in  behalf  of  the 
common  weal  of  a  union  which  they  regarded  doubt- 
fully as  an  experiment.  They  still  felt  themselves 
entitled  to  reject  the  experiment  and  withdraw  from 
the  Union  if  at  any  time  they  should  see  fit  to  do  so. 

It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  historical  illustrations 
of  this  attitude  of  mind,  extending,  though  with 
diminishing  frequency  and  force,  to  that  time  just 
before  the  outbreak  of  the  Confederate  war  when 
N.  P.  Banks's  cry  of  "Let  the  Union  slide"  was  ac- 
cepted as  the  slogan  of  the  anti-slavery  party.  But 
the  multiplication  of  such  illustrations  is  unnecessary. 
Every  instructed  mind  is  aware  of  the  fact  that  at  the 
first  the  Union  was  regarded  as  a  doubtful  experi- 
ment into  which  the  states  had  entered  with  misgiving 
and  from  which  each  state  felt  itself  at  liberty  to 
withdraw  whenever  it  should  find  the  yoke  of  the 
Union  a  galling  one. 

Writing  of  Webster's  replies  to  Hayne,  Senator 
Lodge  frankly  admits  that  the  historical  argument 
was  all  against  Webster;  that  there  is  no  room  for 
doubt  that  at  the  first  the  Union  was  held  to  be  an 
experiment  and  withdrawal  from  it  was  everywhere 
regarded  as  a  reserved  right  of  the  states. 

And  even  the  right  of  a  state  while  remaining  in 
the  Union  to  nullify  a  national  statute  obnoxious  to 
its  prosperity  or  to  its  moral  sense  was  as  directly 
asserted  in  the  personal  liberty  bills  with  which,  just 


The  Growth  of  the  National  Idea  31 

before  the  war,  many  states  sought  to  render  the 
National  Fugitive  Slave  Law  inoperative,  as  it  had 
been  asserted  by  South  Carolina  in  that  state's  at- 
tempt a  generation  earlier  to  annul  and  resist  a  law 
imposing  tariff  restrictions  upon  trade. 

But  there  are  some  other  historical  facts  that  must 
be  borne  in  mind  if  we  would  justly  understand  the 
war  catastrophe  of  1861. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  before  the  beginning 
of  that  year  twenty  new  states  had  been  created  put 
ofTerritories  that  at  the  time  of  the  Union's  forma- 
tion were  wildernesses.  These  new  states  had  none  of 
that  jealousy  of  their  sovereignty  which  gave  pause 
to  the  original  thirteen.  They  had  entered  the  Union 
not  reluctantly,  as  states  hesitatingly  surrendering  a 
previously  cherished  independence,  but  eagerly  as 
communities  upon  which  the  dignity  of  statehood  and 
all  the  sovereignty  that  statehood  implies  had  been 
conferred  by  gracious  gift  of  the  Union.  Those 
communities  had  been  suppliants  for  the  favor  of  ad- 
mission to  the  Union  and  not,  as  the  original  states 
were,  the  creators  of  the  Union,  surrendering  to  it 
with  more  or  less  reluctance  some  share  of  an  abso- 
lute sovereignty  previously  enjoyed  by  themselves. 
These  new  states  were  not  benefactors  of  the  Union 
but  its  beneficiaries.  They  had  surrendered  no  rights 
of  self-government  to  it,  but  on  the  contrary  had 
received  from  it  as  a  gracious  gift  all  the  rights  and 
dignities  of  states,  where  before  they  had  had  no 
rights  and  dignities  whatsoever. 

These  new  states  had  grown  populous  and  pros- 
perous under  that  Union  to  which  they  had  sur- 


32  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

rendered  nothing  of  independence  and  from  which 
they  had  received  all  they  had  of  statehood  and  sov- 
ereignty. Very  naturally,  then,  their  attitude  toward 
the  Union  was  quite  different  from  that  of  the  older 
states.  That  Union  which  the  older  states  had  al- 
ways regarded  as  their  creature,  owing  its  very  ex- 
istence to  their  grace,  the  new  states  looked  upon  as 
their  creator  to  whom  they  owed  all  that  they  enjoyed 
of  liberty-giving  autonomy. 

In  the  newer  states  particularly,  but  in  the  older 
states  also,  there  had  grown  up  a  new  conception  of 
the  dignity  and  permanence  of  the  National  Union. 
That  which  had  been  originally  regarded  as  a  doubt- 
ful venture  had  little  by  little  come  to  be  looked  upon 
as  a  thing  established  and  glorious.  The  national 
idea  had  taken  a  new  and  deeper  hold  upon  men's 
minds  and  affections.  Vast  material  and  moral  in- 
terests had  grown  into  sturdy  self -consciousness  under 
its  beneficent  rule.  That  Union  which  had  been  en- 
tered upon  with  so  much  doubt  and  hesitation  and 
with  so  many  precautionary  stipulations  had  become 
one  of  the  great  nations  of  the  earth,  strong  at  home 
and  everywhere  respected  abroad.  It  had  a  history 
in  war  and  peace  which  was  a  precious  possession  of 
all  the  people  alike. 

Proud,  loving  memories  clustered  about  the  story  of 
its  career.  The  victories  of  New  Orleans,  and  Buena 
Vista,  and  Chapultepec,  the  sea  conquests  of  Porter 
and  Perry  and  the  rest,  had  been  added  to  the  stories 
of  Lexington,  Concord,  Bunker  Hill,  Trenton,  Cam- 
den and  Yorktown,  as  fireside  tales  with  which  the 
grandfathers  made  the  eyes  of  a  younger  generation 


The  Growth  of  the  National  Idea  33 

of  Americans  glisten  with  patriotism.  And  achieve- 
ments of  peace  equally  notable — stories  of  what 
Morse,  Henry,  Fulton,  Peter  Cooper,  Daniel  Boone, 
Bowie,  Kit  Carson,  Fremont,  Sam  Houston,  Gen- 
eral Gaines  and  a  multitude  of  others  had  accom- 
plished— ^were  equally  stimulating  to  the  pride  and 
patriotism  of  the  youth  of  the  thirty-three  states. 

And  there  were  heroic  tales  told  of  Indian  wars 
in  which  Andrew  Jackson  and  William  Henry  Harri- 
son, Sam  Dale,  the  Mississippi  Yagers,  Col.  Dick 
Johnson,  and  other  veritable  heroes  of  romantic  dar- 
ing had  figured.  All  these  and  scores  and  hundreds 
of  other  tales  of  patriotic  heroism  were  then  familiars 
of  the  fireside  as  illustrations  of  American  pluck  and 
American  achievement. 

There  was  the  country's  expansion,  too,  to  glory  in. 
The  Louisiana  purchase  had  added  an  empire  of  vast 
extent  and  of  inestimable  productive  possibilities  to 
the  national  domain,  the  development  of  which,  even 
before  1861,  was  a  romantic  wonder  story  of  history. 
The  Mexican  war  had  brought  with  it  another  acces- 
sion of  incalculably  rich  territory  such  as  no  nation 
in  all  history  except  our  own  had  ever  added  at  a 
single  stroke  to  its  domain. 

Where  the  Spanish  gold-seekers  had  galloped  for 
centuries  in  search  of  the  precious  metal,  finding  it 
not,  an  American  had  quickly  discovered  a  new  Gol- 
conda,  an  Ophir,  an  Eldorado  so  rich  in  its  pro- 
ductiveness as  for  a  time  to  threaten  the  stability  of 
gold  as  an  accepted  measure  of  values  among  men. 
Vast  regions  that  had  remained  for  generations  the 
haunt  of  savages  and  wild  beasts,  with  only  here  and 

1-3 


84  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

there  a  mission  station  of  adobe  huts  to  offer  hope  of 
better  things  in  some  far  distant  future  time,  became, 
within  a  brief  while  populous  territories  ready  to 
take  their  place  in  the  Union  as  important  Amercian 
states.  Better  still,  a  new  and  matchless  fruitfulness 
had  been  discovered  in  vast  valleys  and  upon  far- 
reaching  mountain  sides  that  had  been  previously 
typical  of  hopeless  sterility  and  desolation. 

All  these  things  had  mightily  stimulated  the  Amer- 
ican imagination  and  all  of  them  had  contributed  in- 
calculably to  the  strengthening  of  the  national  spirit 
and  to  the  upbuilding  of  a  new  and  controlling  senti- 
ment of  loyalty  to  the  Union  under  which  all  this 
actual  greatness  had  been  achieved  and  all  this  poten- 
tial greatness  was  confidently  promised. 
'In  still  other  ways  the  sentiment  of  nationality  had 
been  strengthened.  The  orators  of  the  land  had 
for  generations  mightily  exalted  the  horn  of  the  Na- 
tion in  eloquent  speeches  which  all  the  schoolboys  in 
all  the  states  grew  enthusiastic  in  declaiming.  All 
the  literary  men  of  the  land  had  celebrated  the  coun- 
try's glories  in  prose  and  verse  that  filled  the  school 
books  and  set  juvenile  patriotism  aflame  with  ardor. 

All  this  patriotic  awakening  had  for  its  object  of 
worship  the  glories  of  the  Nation,  and  not  at  all  the 
narrower  achievements  of  particular  states  or  sec- 
tions. All  of  it  referred  itself  to  the  Union  as  the 
commonwealth.  Neither  literature,  nor  eloquence; 
nor  familiar  household  narrative  concerned  itself  in 
the  least  with  any  of  those  jealousies  which  had 
prompted  the  original  states  to  hesitate  to  enter  the 
Union.    None  of  them  recognized  even  in  the  remotest 


The  Growth  of  the  National  Idea  35 

way,  those  questions  of  conflicting  powers  and  digni- 
ties, those  anticipations  of  encroachment  on  the  part 
of  the  central  power,  or  those  jealous  guardings  of  the 
rights  of  individual  states  which  had  played  so  large 
a  part  in  the  settlement  of  the  original  problem  of 
a  Federal  Union. 

In  brief,  the  people  had  outgrown  and  forgotten 
the  doubts  and  fears  of  the  earlier  formative  time. 
In  the  main  they  knew  nothing  about  such  things  and 
cared  nothing  for  them.  They  knew  only  that  they 
were  citizens  of  the  greatest,  freest  and  strongest 
nation  on  earth,  and  that  its  history  was  a  heritage  of 
glory  to  all  of  them  alike. 

Lawyers'  quibblings,  logic  chopping,  and  all  argu- 
ments drawn  from  history  meant  nothing  to  the  great 
majority  of  a  people  who  had  been  born  and  bred 
under  the  Union  and  had  imbibed  with  their  mothers' 
milk  a  sentiment  of  undying  loyalty,  not  to  any  state 
or  any  doctrine  or  any  theory,  but  to  the  Nation  in 
whose  history  they  regarded  themselves  as  entitled  to 
feel  personal  and  ancestral  pride  and  affection. 

Thus  while  the  historical  argument  was  clearly 
with  those  who  maintained  the  right  of  the  states  to 
assert  their  authority  as  superior  to  that  of  the  Union, 
that  argument  was  addressed  in  large  part  to  ears 
that  had  been  rendered  deaf  to  it  by  the  echoes  of 
the  national  glory.  While  the  Union  had  indeed 
been  at  the  first  a  hesitating  experiment,  it  had  be- 
come by  time  and  by  national  achievement  a 
nationality  for  the  maintenance  of  which  vast  pop- 
ulations were  ready  and  willing  and  even  eager  to 
risk  their  lives. 


36  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

If  we  would  understand  the  war  and  the  condi- 
tions in  which  it  came  about,  we  must  first  clearly 
realize  the  change  that  had  occurred  in  popular  senti- 
ment, and  especially  the  growth  of  that  national  feel- 
ing which  had  slowly  but  surely  replaced  the  old 
hesitation  and  jealousy  of  the  states.  Only  the  cir- 
cumstance that  slavery  existed  and  was  defended  in 
one  part  of  the  Union  and  that  it  was  antagonized 
in  the  other  part  on  grounds  of  poUcy,  conviction, 
and  morality,  kept  alive  the  old  sentiment  of  state 
sovereignty  and  made  the  war  possible.  That  senti- 
ment of  the  dominant  right  of  the  states  was  strongly 
asserted  on  both  sides  and  insisted  upon  both  in  be- 
half of  slavery  and  in  antagonism  to  it  until  war  re- 
sulted. The  history  of  that  controversy  must  be  the 
subject  of  a  separate  chapter,  in  which  its  irritating 
character  as  well  as  the  difficulties  that  statesman- 
ship encountered  in  dealing  with  it,  may  be  set  forth 
without  undue  elaboration  but  with  sufficient  detail 
to  render  the  result  easily  enough  understood. 


CHAPTER  III 

The  "Irrepressible  Conflict" 

There  is  no  possibility  of  doubt  that,  but  for  the 
slavery  controversy,  that  growth  of  an  intense  na- 
tional feeling  which  has  been  mentioned  would  have 
rendered  the  war  of  1861-65  impossible. 

That  intensely  patriotic  feeling  of  nationality  was 
all  pervasive,  except  in  so  far  as  the  slavery  contro- 
versy impaired  it  as  it  did,  both  North  and  South. 
If  that  one  cause  of  disagreement  had  not  existed,  if 
there  had  been  no  negro  slaves  in  the  United  States, 
the  sentiment  of  union  and  nationality  which  had 
grown  with  the  Nation's  growth  and  strengthened 
with  its  strength,  would  unquestionably  have  over- 
borne all  the  quibbles  and  all  the  logical  refinements  of 
the  earlier  time.  The  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
especially  those  of  John  Marshall,  which  in  effect  re- 
wrote the  Constitution  and  successfully  claimed  for 
the  courts  the  right  to  annul  any  and  all  acts  of  Con- 
gress that  were  not  in  accordance  with  the  Constitu- 
tion, had  created  a  new  and  effective  barrier  against 
possible  aggression  by  the  Federal  power  upon  the 
autonomy  of  the  states  and  had  at  the  same  time 
established  the  Federal  authority  securely.  When 
Marshall  decided  in  Marbury  vs.  Madison,  that  an 
act  of  Congress  assuming  to  do  by  national  author- 
ity anything  reserved  to  the  states  in  the  constitu- 

37 


88  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

tional  grant  of  power  to  the  General  Government, 
is  no  law  at  all  but  an  act  null  and  void,  whicH 
the  courts  will  on  no  account  enforce,  there  was  an 
end  of  all  danger  of  wanton  Federal  encroachment 
upon  the  reserved  rights  of  the  states.  And,  as  we 
have  seen,  that  fear  died  out  of  men's  minds,  except 
in  so  far  as  questions  relating  to  slavery  from  time 
to  time  revived  it.  But  for  those  questions  it  need 
never  again  have  arisen  to  vex  the  Republic  and  set 
its  people  by  the  ears. 

But  slavery  involved  questions  of  prejudice,  ques- 
tions of  passion,  questions  of  morality,  questions  of 
labor,  questions  of  principle,  and  questions  of  pride, 
of  sentiment,  of  conscience,  of  religion,  of  conviction. 
It  stirred  the  passions  of  men,  excited  their  preju- 
dices, and  appealed  to  their  interests  as  no  other 
question  of  policy  has  done  in  our  modern  times.  In- 
cidentally it  revived,  as  no  other  issue  could  have 
done,  all  the  old  jealousies  between  the  Union  and 
the  several  states  which  the  progress  of  the  Republic 
had  so  strongly  tended  to  allay.  It  set  the  history  of 
the  formation  of  the  Union  against  the  history  of  the 
Union  itself  as  implacably  antagonistic  historical 
arguments  in  behalf  of  conflicting  contentions. 

Let  us  see  how  all  this  came  about. 

When  the  colonies  achieved  their  independence, 
slavery  existed,  in  greater  or  less  degree,  in  all  of 
them.  The  negro  was  then  nowhere  regarded  as  a 
man,  so  far  at  least  as  the  generalizations  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  and  other  formal  set- 
tings forth  of  human  rights  were  concerned.  There 
was  a  strong  desire  to  be  rid  of  slavery,  a  deep  seated 


The  ''Irr expressible  Conflict'^  39 

conviction  of  the  impolity  of  that  institution,  but,* 
except  among  the  Quakers  and  a  very  few  others, 
there  seems  to  have  been  no  thought  anywhere  that 
the  holding  of  negroes  in  bondage  was  a  violation  of 
that  fundamental  doctrine  of  human  rights  upon 
which  the  Republic  had  been  established. 

Indeed  the  desire  to  be  rid  of  slavery  seems  at  that 
time,  and  for  a  long  time  afterwards,  to  have  been 
stronger  at  the  South,  where  the  institution  was  gen- 
eral, than  at  the  North  where  it  existed  only  in  a 
scant  and  inconsequent  way.  As  early  as  1760,  the 
South  Carolina  colony  had  sought  to  limit  the  ex- 
tension of  the  system  by  passing  an  act  forbidding 
the  further  importation  of  slaves,  but  the  British 
Government  had  vetoed  the  measure.  Twelve  years 
later  Virginia  sought  to  protect  her  people  against 
the  black  danger  of  slavery  by  imposing  a  prohibitory 
tariff  duty  upon  imported  slaves.  Again  the  home 
government  in  London  forbade  the  act  to  have  any 
force  or  effect. 

When  Thomas  Jefferson,  a  Virginian,  wrote  the 
first  draft  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  one 
of  the  strongest  counts  in  his  splendid  indictment 
of  the  British  King  was  the  charge  that  in  these  and 
other  cases  he  had  forbidden  the  people  of  the  colonies 
to  put  any  legal  check  upon  the  growth  of  this 
stupendous  evil. 

But  when  the  Declaration  was  adopted  by  Con- 
gress and  signed  as  the  young  Republic's  explana- 
tion of  its  revolutionary  action,  rendered  in  obedience 
to  "a  decent  respect  for  the  opinions  of  mankind," 
the  great  Virginian's  arraignment  of  the  King  for 


40  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

having  thus  fostered  slavery  in  colonies  that  desired 
to  be  rid  of  it,  did  not  appear  in  that  supreme  docu- 
ment of  state.  We  have  Jefferson's  own  testimony 
that  it  had  been  stricken  out  in  deference  to  the  will 
of  those  New  England  merchants  and  capitalists 
whose  ships  and  money  found  astonishingly  profitable 
employment  in  the  slave  trade  between  the  coast  of 
Africa  and  the  southern  part  of  our  country. 

Thus  while  the  holding  of  slaves  in  the  more 
northerly  colonies  had  proved  to  be  unprofitable  and 
had  to  a  great  extent  ceased  at  the  time  of  the  Revo- 
lution, the  traffic  in  slaves  from  Africa  to  the  south- 
ern parts  of  this  country  was  so  profitable  an  industry 
that  even  the  Declaration  of  Independence  must  be 
emasculated  of  one  of  its  most  virile  features  in 
deference  to  the  greed  of  gain. 

And  this  dominance  of  interest  over  principle  con- 
tinued for  long  years  afterward.  When  the  great 
convention  that  framed  the  Constitution  was  in  ses- 
sion, it  was  at  first  proposed  to  put  an  end  to  the 
slave  trade  from  Africa  in  the  year  1800.  An 
amendment  was  offered,  extending  the  license  of 
that  infamous  traffic  to  the  year  1808,  and  this  eight 
years'  extension  was  adopted  by  a  vote  which  included 
in  the  affirmative  every  New  England  state  repre- 
sented in  the  convention,  Virginia  voting  steadfastly 
against  it. 

Those  votes  for  the  extension  of  the  slave  trade 
were  given  undoubtedly  in  behalf  of  the  mercantile 
interest  of  the  maritime  states  of  the  northeast,  and 
they  reflected  no  moral  conviction  whatsoever.  For 
there  was  at  that  time  no  moral  conviction  of  the 


The  ''Irrepressible  Conflict''  41! 

wrongfulness  of  slavery  anywhere  in  the  country. 
The  thought  that  the  negro  was  a  man,  endowed  by 
his  Creator  with  an  unalienable  right  to  "life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,"  had  not  yet  been  born 
in  America. 

And  even  after  thirty  odd  years,  and  a  dozen  years 
after  the  constitutional  prohibition  of  the  African 
slave  trade  had  gone  into  effect,  that  unlawful  traffic 
in  human  beings  was  still  so  gainful  an  occupation  to 
merchants  and  shipmasters,  that  Mr.  Justice  Joseph 
Story,  himself  a  New  Englander  and  a  judge  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  was  bitterly 
denounced  by  the  New  England  press  and  public  as 
a  judge  who  deserved  to  be  "hurled  from  the  bench," 
because  he  had  instructed  grand  juries  that  it  was 
their  sworn  duty  to  indict  the  men  who  were  still 
engaged  in  the  nefarious  business  of  transporting 
slaves,  under  conditions  of  unspeakable  cruelty,  from 
Africa  to  these  shores.  The  oifense  of  that  great 
jurist  lay  in  the  fact  that  he  regarded  the  demands 
of  the  constitution  and  the  law  as  more  binding  upon 
his  character  and  conscience  than  the  demands  of  the 
New  England  slave  traders  whose  very  profitable 
business  his  insistence  upon  the  rigid  enforcement 
of  the  law  threatened  to  embarrass  and  destroy. 

As  there  are  now  no  advocates  of  slavery  in  our 
free  land;  as  all  of  us.  North  and  South  alike,  are 
agreed  that  the  institution  was  a  curse  the  maledic- 
tions of  which  endure  to  the  present  day  in  vexatious 
"race  problems;"  it  is  possible  and  proper  now  to 
record  all  facts  respecting  it  with  impartiality  and 
without  controversial  intent.     It  is  of  supreme  im- 


42  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

portance  to  any  clear  understanding  of  this  matter 
to  bear  in  mind  the  fact  that  our  modern  conceptions 
of  human  rights  did  not  exist  in  the  earlier  times;  that 
the  recognition  of  the  negro  as  "a  man  and  a  brother" 
is  the  birth  of  comparatively  recent  thought;  that 
the  traffic  in  black  human  beings,  captured  in  Africa 
and  brought  hither  for  sale  as  laborers,  excited  no 
impulse  of  antagonism,  offended  no  moral  sentiment, 
and  seemed  to  nobody  in  the  earlier  times  a  violation 
of  those  fundamental  doctrines  of  human  right  upon 
which  this  Republic  is  based.  All  that  has  been  a 
glorious  after-thought,  and  it  is  solely  with  an  ex- 
pository purpose  and  not  at  all  as  a  tu  quoque  that 
these  facts  of  history  are  here  set  forth. 

Surely  the  time  is  fully  ripe  in  which  men  of  the 
North  and  men  of  the  South  may  sit  together  in  an 
impartial  study  of  the  causes  of  a  quarrel  that 
brought  them  into  armed  conflict  more  than  a  genera- 
tion ago  and  may  calmly  consider  without  offense 
the  sins  of  their  forefathers  on  either  side,  making 
due  allowance  for  the  lack  of  modern  light  and  lead- 
ing as  a  guide  to  those  forefathers.  We  must  do  this 
in  this  spirit,  if  we  would  be  fair.  Still  more  imper- 
atively must  we  do  it  if  history  is  ever  to  be  written. 

The  period  of  controversy  is  past.  The  time  of 
reckoning  has  come.  The  time  has  come  when  the 
advocate  holding  a  brief  for  the  one  or  the  other 
party  to  the  controversy  should  give  place  to  the 
historian  intent  only  upon  the  task  of  discovering  and 
recording  fact.  The  circumstance  that  there  was 
grievous  wrong  on  both  sides  does  not  rob  either  of 
the  credit  due  for  the  right  that  it  supported. 


The  ''Irrepressible  Conflict"  4B 

After  the  revolution  the  great  statesmen  of  our 
land  manifested  a  determined  eagerness  to  free  the 
country  from  slavery.  John  Adams  and  Alexander 
Hamilton  were  not  more  energetic  in  this  cause  than 
were  Jefferson  and  other  Southerners.  When  Vir- 
ginia ceded  to  the  Federal  Government  all  her  claims 
to  the  territory  northwest  of  the  Ohio  river,  it  was 
Thomas  Jefferson,  the  Virginian  slaveholder,  who 
insisted  upon  writing  into  the  deed  of  cession  a  pro- 
vision that  slavery  should  never  be  permitted  in  any 
part  of  that  fair  land  which  now  constitutes  the 
states  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan  and  Wis- 
consin. 

George  Wythe,  under  whose  tuition  Henry  Clay 
studied  law,  was  by  all  odds  the  greatest  jurist  that 
Virginia  ever  produced,  with  the  single  exception  of 
John  Marshall.  George  Wythe  was  one  of  those 
whom  Mr.  Carl  Schurz  has  in  our  own  times  char- 
acterized as  "the  Revolutionary  abolitionists."  They 
were  the  men  of  the  South  who  regarded  slavery  as 
an  imposed  and  hereditary  curse  to  be  got  rid  of  by 
any  means  that  did  not  threaten  the  social  fabric  with 
destruction  and  the  country  itself  with  chaos  and 
black  night.  George  Wythe  absolutely  impoverished 
himself — born  to  vast  wealth  as  he  was — in  setting 
free  the  negroes  whom  he  had  inherited  as  slaves  and 
in  providing  them  with  the  means  of  establishing 
themselves  in  bread-winning  ways.  For,  as  he  ex- 
pressed it,  "I  have  no  right  to  set  these  people  free 
to  starve." 

He  gave  them  their  liberty  and  with  it  a  piece  of 
land  for  each,  on  which  with  ordinary  industry  and 


44  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

thrift  they  could  surely  make  a  living  for  themselves 
and  their  families.  Then  he  set  to  work,  a  man 
stripped  of  all  his  ancestral  possessions  and  impov- 
erished by  his  own  act  of  justice,  to  earn  a  living  as 
a  Virginian  lawyer.  So  far  from  having  offended 
his  fellow  Virginians  by  his  act  of  emancipation,  he 
had  won  their  esteem  and  their  reverence.  He  be- 
came their  chancellor  and  the  most  honored  judge 
upon  their  bench. 

Thousands  of  other  Virginians  of  lesser  note  than 
George  Wythe  did  substantially  the  same  thing, 
though  less  conspicuously.  Under  the  law  after  a 
time  they  could  not  set  their  slaves  free  without  send- 
ing them  beyond  the  borders  of  the  state.  Many  of 
them  found  this  condition  a  paralyzing  one.  They 
must  pay  off  the  hereditary  debts  of  their  estates  and 
they  must  buy  in  the  West  little  but  sufficient  farms 
for  their  inherited  negro  slaves  to  live  upon  if  they 
would  set  those  slaves  free.  These  things  many  of 
them  did  at  cost  of  personal  impoverishment,  while 
many  others,  like-minded,  found  conditions  beyond 
their  control.  If  the  whole  story  of  that  Virginian 
effort  to  be  rid  of  slavery  by  individual  and  grandly 
self-sacrificing  effort  could  be  told  here  or  else- 
where, the  angels  of  justice  and  mercy  would  rejoice 
to  read  the  page  on  which  the  wonder  tale  was  written. 
But  the  heroes  who  did  these  deeds  of  self-sacrifice  for 
principle  were  mainly  obscure  men  of  whose  names 
there  remains  no  record.  Only  here  and  there  a 
great  name  like  that  of  George  Wythe  appears. 
Among  these  is  the  name  of  John  Randolph  of 
Roanoke, — most  insistently  cantankerous  of  South- 


The  "Irrepressible  Conflict''  45 

erners — who  left  a  will  freeing  all  his  slaves  on 
grounds  of  human  right.  And  though  that  will  was 
defeated  of  its  purpose  by  a  legal  technicality,  it  is 
immeasurably  valuable  as  a  fact  in  history  which  re- 
flects the  sentiment  of  that  time  among  those  who 
had  inherited  and  who  held  slaves  and  even  among 
those  who,  like  Randolph,  are  commonly  regarded  as 
the  special  champions  of  slavery. 

And  this  desire  of  Southern  men  to  be  rid  of  slav- 
ery did  not  cease  until  the  very  end.     Very  many  ^^ 
Southerners  whose  consciences  dominated  their  lives,   \ 
deliberately  and  painstakingly  educated  their  negroes    \ 
for  freedom  in  the  hope  and  assurance  that  sooner  or 
later,  by  one  means  or  by  another,  freedom  would 
come  to  them.     There  were  planters  not  a  few  who 
used  their  authority  as  the  masters  of  slaves  to  compel 
their  negroes  to  cultivate  little  fields  of  their  own  and   , 
to  put  aside  the  proceeds  thereof,  as  a  fund  with  / 
which  to  meet  the  surely  coming  freedom  face  to ' 
face,  with  no  fear  of  starvation  as  a  circumstance  of 
embarrassment. 

Henry  Clay  studied  law  under  Virginia's  great 
chancellor,  George  Wythe.  From  his  distinguished 
Virginian  teacher  he  learned  the  lesson  that  slavery 
— forced  upon  an  unwilling  people  in  the  Southern 
part  of  this  country  by  kingly  and  corporate  greed, 
and  still  further  forced  upon  those  regions  by  the 
greed  of  merchants  and  shipmasters,  even  after  the 
traffic  that  fed  it  had  been  prohibited  by  the  Consti- 
tution and  by  the  law — was  an  evil  and  a  curse,  a 
wrong  to  the  black  man  and  a  demoralizing  influence 
to  the  white.    He  saw  clearly  that  it  was  the  task  of 


46  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

all  good  men  to  exterminate  that  evil  root  and  branch, 
by  such  means  as  might  be  found  available,  without 
the  destruction  of  society  as  a  necessary  incident  or 
consequence.  In  the  young  state  of  Kentucky 
Henry  Clay  began  his  political  career  as  an  advocate 
of  rational  and  gradual  emancipation,  and  to  his 
dying  day — ^involved  as  he  was  in  all  the  strenuous 
controversies  to  which  the  slavery  issue  gave  rise  in 
national  politics — ^he  never  lost  his  interest  in  this  be- 
half or  abated  his  efforts  to  secure  its  accomplish- 
ment. A  plea  for  the  extermination  of  slavery  was 
the  first  plea  he  ever  presented  to  the  people  whom 
he  asked  to  support  him  for  public  office.  A  plea 
for  the  extirpation  of  slavery  was  well-nigh  the  last 
that  he  ever  urged  upon  the  people  of  his  state  after 
all  that  was  possible  of  honor  had  been  conferred 
upon  him  by  their  approving  will. 

So  enduring  was  this  sentiment  at  the  South  that 
John  Letcher,  the  Democratic  war  governor  of  Vir- 
ginia, the  man  who  set  Lee  to  organize  the  state's 
forces  for  the  Confederate  war,  the  man  who  created 
the  Army  of  Northern  Virginia  and  made  possible 
all  its  splendid  achievements,  was  in  fact  elected  gov- 
ernor because  of  his  abolitionist  sentiments. 

Mr.  Letcher  was  strongly  imbued  with  that  con- 
viction which  had  dominated  the  best  minds  of  Vir- 
ginia from  colonial  days,  that  slavery  was  a  curse 
to  be  got  rid  of  and  not  at  all  an  institution  to  be 
defended  upon  its  merits.  He  had  publicly  urged  the 
necessity  of  getting  rid  of  it.  He  had  explained  to 
his  fellow  Virginians,  in  public  utterances,  its  demor- 
alizing influence  upon  the  young  white  men  of  that 


The  "Irrepressible  Conflict  47 

commonwealth.  Finally,  so  eager  was  he  to  rid  his 
native  state  of  the  incubus  that  he  deliberately  pro- 
posed the  one  thing  most  offensive  to  the  Virgin- 
ian mind,  namely,  the  division  of  the  "Old  Domin- 
ion" into  two  states  in  order  that  the  western  half 
of  it  at  least  might  be  free  from  slavery.  When  he 
stood  as  a  candidate  for  governor  in  the  last  elec- 
tion before  the  war,  all  these  facts  were  used  against 
him  to  the  utmost  by  the  advocates  of  slavery  and 
they  undoubtedly  deprived  him  of  many  thousands 
of  votes  east  of  the  AUeghenies.  The  first  returns 
indicated  the  election  of  his  adversary,  William  L. 
Goggin,  by  an  overwhelming  majority.  But  when 
the  figures  came  in  from  the  western  part  of  the  state, 
where  slavery  scarcely  at  all  survived,  John  Letcher 
was  elected.  Thus  the  anti-slavery  sentiment  gave  to 
the  foremost  state  of  the  Southern  Confederacy  its 
singularly  earnest  and  efficient  war  governor. 

But  side  by  side  with  this  anti-slavery  sentiment 
in  the  South,  there  grew  up  a  pro-slavery  sentiment 
which  was  buttressed  by  every  impulse  of  gain  that  it 
is  possible  for  the  human  mind  to  conceive. 

Near  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  Eli  Whit- 
ney made  slavery  enormously  profitable  by  his  in- 
vention of  the  cotton-gin.  Before  that  time  slavery 
had  been  of  more  than  doubtful  profit  to  the  people 
of  the  states  that  permitted  it.  It  was  not  at  all 
an  economical  labor  system.  It  required  the  master 
to  give  to  the  laborer,  in  lieu  of  wages,  such  food, 
habitation,  clothing,  nursing  in  illness  and  care  in 
infancy  and  old  age,  as  no  laboring  population  in  the 
world  has  ever  before  or  since  received  in  return  for 


48  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

its  labor.  It  involved  pension  as  well  as  payment. 
It  imposed  upon  the  employer  obligations  such  as  no 
employer  in  all  the  world,  before  or  since,  has  been 
willing  to  assume. 

>  But  Eli  Whitney's  invention  of  the  cotton-gin 
made  the  payment  of  such  wages  possible  and  profit- 
able. It  made  it  possible  for  a  plantation  owner  to 
grow  rich  while  feeding,  housing,  clothing  and  car- 
ing for  his  negroes  as  no  other  employer  has  fed, 
housed,  clothed  and  cared  for  his  working  people 
since  the  foundations  of  the  world  were  laid. 

Eli  Whitney's  invention  made  illimitable  cotton  a 
substitute  for  costly  and  narrowly  limited  linen  and 
in  a  great  degree  for  good.  It  made  it  possible 
for  every  man  in  all  the  world  to  put  a  shirt  on  his 
back,  a  pair  of  sheets  on  his  bed,  a  case  on  his  pillow, 
and  to  clothe  his  wife  in  calico  and  his  children  in 
cottonade  where  before  all  these  luxuries  were  denied 
to  him  and  his  by  inexorable  laws  of  economics.  But 
incidentally  that  invention  made  slavery  enormously 
profitable,  where  before  it  had  been  doubtfully 
profitable.  Eliza  Lucas  of  South  Carolina,  after- 
wards Eliza  Pinckney,  had  sought  to  find  profitable 
employment  for  her  slaves  by  cultivating  indigo. 
Other  enterprising  experimenters  had  explored  other 
avenues  of  earning,  but  not  one  of  them  had  found 
a  way  of  making  profitable  the  ownership  of  slaves 
until  Eli  Whitney  devised  a  machine  by  the  use  of 
which  any  ignorant  negro  could  remove  the  seed  from 
three  thousand  pounds  of  cotton  in  a  single  day, 
where  before  one  negro  man  or  woman  could  remove 
the  seed  from  only  one  pound  or  at  the  most  a  few 


The  "Irrepressible  Conflict''  49 

pounds.  From  that  hour  forward,  negro  slavery 
became  profitable  in  the  South,  and  from  that  hour 
forth  it  stood  as  a  "vested  interest"  with  its  influence 
as  such  in  politics. 

Let  us  not  misunderstand.  The  cultivation  of  cot- 
ton by  free  labor  has  exceeded  in  its  productiveness 
by  more  than  two  to  one,  that  cultivation  under  the 
slave  system.  As  has  already  been  set  forth  in  these 
pages,  the  greatest  cotton  crop  ever  grown  before  the 
war  with  which  we  here  have  to  deal  amounted  only 
to  4,669,770  bales,  while  under  free  labor  the  annual 
production  rose  to  an  average  of  more  than  11,000,- 
000  bales  in  the  closing  years  of  the  century  which 
saw  the  extinction  of  slavery. 

Yet  there  is  no  doubt  or  possibility  of  doubt  that  \ 
Eli  Whitney's  invention  of  the  cotton-gin  near  the    \ 
end  of  the  eighteenth  century  made  negro  slavery 
profitable  as  it  had  never  been  before  in  this  country. 
It  enabled  the  planter  to  grow  rich  upon  the  pro-    / 
ceeds  of  the  labor  of  negro  slaves  whose  industry 
had  before  produced  scarcely  more  than  enough  to 
support  themselves.     It  created  a  new  era.     It  in- 
augurated a  new  epoch.     It  instigated  a  new  senti-  / 
ment  in  favor  of  slavery,  where  before  the  sentiment 
had  been  tending  the  other  way. 

In  considering  human  aff*airs  historically  it  is  very 
necessary  to  bear  in  mind  that  men  ordinarily  have  no 
opinions.  If  by  "opinions"  we  mean  well  considered 
judgments,  founded  upon  an  orderly  reasoning  from 
accepted  premises,  then  opinions  are  the  very  rarest 
of  human  possessions.  If  we  are  told  that  a  partic- 
ular person  was  born  and  bred  in  Spain,  we  know 

1-4 


50  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

without  further  inquiry  what  his  religious  convictions 
are.  If  we  learn  that  he  is  a  Turk  we  perfectly 
know  his  so-called  opinions  upon  the  subject  of  mat- 
rimony. We  take  for  granted  the  views  of  the  Puri- 
tans' sons  and  daughters  concerning  religion.  We 
know,  without  asking,  what  the  "opinions"  of  any 
American  are  with  respect  to  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence. We  know  that,  with  the  exception  of 
a  very  few  men,  all  the  people  of  the  South  were 
firmly  convinced  that  the  cause  of  the  South  in 
the  Confederate  war  was  a  just  one;  that  the  Na- 
tional Government  had  no  conceivable  right  to  coerce 
recalcitrant  states;  that  secession  was  an  absolute 
right  of  the  states,  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  On  the  other 
hand  we  know  that  the  Northern  boy  who  had  de- 
claimed Webster's  reply  to  Hayne  was  fully  imbued 
with  the  conviction  that  "Liberty  and  Union"  were 
"now  and  forever,  one  and  inseparable." 

In  other  words,  with  here  and  there  an  exception, 
men's  opinions  are  determined  by  geography,  tradi- 
tion, circumstance,  self-interest  and  the  like. 

Thus  when  New  England's  chief  interest  was 
maritime  and  commercial,  Daniel  Webster  was  the 
most  radical  of  free-traders.  He  held  up  to  ridicule 
and  contumely  Henry  Clay's  protective  "American 
system"  and  showed  conclusively  that  nothing  in  the 
world  could  be  more  utterly  un-American.  But  a 
few  years  later,  when  New  England's  interests  were 
centered  in  manufactures,  Daniel  Webster's  opinions 
became  those  of  an  extreme  protectionist.  In  the  same 
way  he  opposed  a  national  bank  so  long  as  New  Eng- 
land  disliked   that   institution   and   favored   it  the 


The  ''Irrepressible  Conflicf^  51 

moment  New  England  desired  its  continuance.  In 
like  manner  John  C.  Calhoun  began  by  clamoring 
for  the  tariff  protection  of  Southern  industries  and 
developed  into  the  chief  apostle  of  nullification  as 
a  means  of  escaping  protective  tariffs.  Similarly 
Clay  began  by  making  so  absolutely  conclusive  an 
argument  against  a  national  bank  that  Andrew  Jack- 
son afterwards  quoted  it  as  the  best  possible  plea 
he  could  offer  in  support  of  his  warfare  upon  that 
institution  after  Clay  had  become  its  chief  apostle. 

Men  ordinarily  have  no  opinions  except  so  far  as 
self-interest,  geography,  and  circumstance  determine 
them  and  in  considering  matters  of  history  it  is  of 
the  utmost  importance  to  recognize  that  truth. 

In  the  last  analysis,  therefore.  Southern  opinion 
was  determined  in  behalf  of  slavery  by  the  cotton-gin. 
And  yet  the  greater  number  of  Southern  men  were 
not  slaveholders  and  so  had  no  personal  interest  in 
the  institution.  Their  opinions  were  merely  a  reflec- 
tion of  the  sentiment  that  surrounded  them.  That 
sentiment  was  born  of  self-interest  on  the  part  of 
a  small  but  dominant  class  and  it  drew  to  itself 
the  sentiment  of  that  much  more  numerous  class — 
the  white  man  who  owned  no  negroes.  Of  the 
white  men  in  the  Confederate  army,  who  made  so 
unmatched  a  fight  for  Southern  independence,  not 
one  in  five  had  ever  owned  a  slave  or  expected  to 
own  one. 

And  there  was  another  influence  at  work  all  this 
while  to  create  a  sentiment  at  the  South  in  favor  of 
slavery  as  an  institution  right  in  itself,  where  before 
it  had  been  almost  uniformly  regarded  as  an  entail 


52  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

of  evil.  The  circumstances  of  the  national  life 
forced  this  question  into  politics  and  made  of  it  an 
incalculably  exasperating  issue. 

The  Nation  having  acquired  the  vast  Louisiana 
territory,  invitingly  fruitful  as  it  was,  the  question 
arose  "What  shall  we  do  with  it?"  Men  from  all 
quarters  of  the  country  wanted  to  go  in  and  "possess 
the  land."  Those  of  them  who  came  from  the  South 
vjery  naturally  desired  to  take  their  negro  servants 
„with  them  into  the  new  territories,  and  at  first  they 
did  so  without  let  or  hindrance.  Even  the  Indians 
of  Mississippi,  Georgia,  Tennessee,  South  Carolina, 
and  Alabama,  when  removed,  practically  by  compul- 
sion, to  the  Indian  Territory  west  of  the  Mississippi 
years  later  were  freely  permitted  to  take  their  negro 
slaves  with  them,  nobody  gainsaying  their  right.  In 
like  manner  Southern  men  emigrating  to  Missouri 
took  their  slaves  with  them  without  so  much  as  a 
question  of  their  right  to  do  so.  And  when  Missouri, 
in  1819,  became  sufficiently  populous  to  justify  an 
application  for  statehood,  a  majority  of  the  settlers 
in  that  region  desired  that  African  slavery  should  be 
permitted  there. 

J[n  the  meantime,  the  Northern  states,  now  com- 
pletely emancipated  from  slavery  within  their  own 
borders,  had  more  and  more  learned  to  detest  the 
system.  There  had  grown  up  in  the  North  an  intense 
moral  sentiment  in  antagonism  to  the  further  exten- 
sion of  slavery.  There  had  grown  up  also  an  intense 
economic  opposition  to  the  system.  It  was  felt  that 
the  very  existence  of  slavery  in  any  region  tended 
to  degrade  free  labor  and  to  make  of  the  laborer  an 


The  "Irrepressible  Conflict''  53 

inferior  person  not  entitled  to  respect,  a  person  not 
quite  a  slave  but  still  not  quite  a  freeman. 

It  was,  nevertheless,  not  deemed  reputable  to  ad- 
vocate the  abolition  of  slavery.  The  term  "Aboli- 
tionist" was  then,  and  for  a  generation  afterwards 
continued  to  be,  the  most  opprobrious  epithet  that  one 
man  could  apply  to  another. 

Nevertheless  when  Missouri  sought  admission  to 
the  Union  as  a  slave  state,  the  opposition  was  intense, 
determined,  angry. 

Then  came  Henry  Clay  with  a  compromise.  Earn- 
estly desiring  the  extinction  of  the  slave  system,  it 
was  that  statesman's  fate  to  do  more  than  any  other 
man  of  his  era  in  behalf  of  the  perpetuation  and  ex- 
tension of  the  institution  which  he  regarded  as  a  curse 
and  an  incubus.  There  was  one  other  thing  for  which 
he  cared  far  more  than  he  did  for  the  extinction  of 
slavery.  In  common  with  Webster  and  most  others 
of  the  statesmen  of  that  time  he  was  more  deeply 
^oncerofidJEor,  the  preservation  and  perpetuation  of 
the  Union  than  for  any  other  matter  that  appealed  to 
his  mind.  His  attitude  was  identical  with  that  of 
Mr.  Lincoln  while  the  war  was  on,  when  he  declared 
his  sole  purpose  to  be  the  restoration  of  the  Union 
and  proclaimed  his  conviction  that  the  question  of 
slavery  and  all  other  questions  were  in  his  mind  sub- 
ordinate to  that. 

Clay  saw  grave  danger  to  the  Union  in  this  Mis- 
souri controversy.  In  order  to  avert  that  danger,  and 
regardless  of  everything  else,  he  brought  forward 
his  compromise  and  succeeded  in  securing  its  enact- 
ment into  law. 


54  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

Under  that  compromise  Missouri  was  admitted  to 
the  Union  as  a  slave  state ;  but  it  was  stipulated  that 
mT  other  slave  state  should  be  carved  out  of  territory 
north  of  36°  30'  north  latitude,  that  being  the  south- 
ern boundary  line  of  Missouri. 

In  practical  effect  this  compromise  excluded  slavery 
from  all  future  states  to  be  created  out  of  the  vast  re- 
gion embraced  in  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  except  the 
territory  of  Arkansas.  Louisiana  was  already  a  state. 
Missouri  was  permitted  by  the  compromise  itself  to 
become  a  state.  The  Indian  Territory  was  forever 
set  apart  for  a  special  purpose  and,  it  was  then  held, 
could  never  become  a  state.  There  was  no  other  acre 
of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  lying  south  of  the  line 
fixed  by  the  compromise  as  the  extreme  northern 
limit  to  which  the  institution  might  extend.  Texas, 
New  Mexico,  Utah,  Arizona,  California,  Nevada, 
Colorado  and  the  rest  were  still  Mexican  possessions 
which  the  great  Republic  had  not  then  the  remotest 
thought  of  acquiring.  On  the  other  hand  there  were 
all  the  vast,  fruitful  regions  now  known  as  Iowa, 
Kansas,  Nebraska,  Minnesota,  the  Dakotas  and  the 
states  lying  to  the  west  of  them  into  which  by  this 
agreement  slavery  might  never  go,  from  which  it  was 
supposedly  as  effectually  excluded  as  it  had  been  from 
Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan  and  Wisconsin  by 
that  clause  which  Thomas  Jefferson — in  his  eager- 
ness to  make  an  end  of  the  system — had  written  into 
the  deed  of  cession  by  which  the  Northwest  Terri- 
tory became  a  national  possession. 

Clay  fondly  believed  that  this  Missouri  Compro- 
mise of  his  devising  had  finally  laid  to  rest  the  entire 


The  ''Irrepressible  Conflict''  55 

controversy  with  regard  to  slavery.  Thirty  odd  years 
later  he  was  still  laboring  to  induce  his  own  state, 
Kentucky,  to  adopt  a  system  of  gradual  emanci- 
pation, but  in  the  meanwhile  history  had  written 
itself  in  another  way  and  in  direct  antagonism  to 
his  views. 

There  had  grown  up  at  the  North  an  intolerance 
of  slavery  which  freely  expressed  itself  in  denuncia- 
tion of  those  who  supported  or  countenanced  the  in- 
stitution. •  There  had  grown  up  at  the  South  a  senti- 
ment in  advocacy  of  slavery  such  as  did  not  exist  in 
that  region  in  the  earlier  years  of  the  Republic.  Men 
whose  fathers  and  grandfathers  had  diligently  sought 
means  by  which  to  free  their  native  land  of  a  curse, 
had  little  by  little  come  to  regard  that  curse  as  a  bless- 
ing. Men  whose  forefathers  had  regarded  slavery 
as  an  inherited  misfortune,  came  to  regard  the  in- 
stitution as  right  in  itself  and  to  defend  it  as  the 
best,  most  generous,  and  most  humane  labdr  system 
in  the  world.  In  support  of  this  contention  theyj 
could  point  to  the  factory  system  of  old  England, 
and  New  England  and  argue  with  some  truth  that 
nowhere  in  the  world  was  labor  so  generously  re- 
warded as  at  the  South. 

Moreover,  the  antagonism  to  the  system  which  had 
developed  at  the  North  had  its  very  natural  reflex 
effect.  The  offensive  terms  in  which  slave  owners 
were  habitually  spoken  of  in  Northern  prints  were 
well  calculated  to  impel  Southern  men  to  the  angry 
and  intemperate  defense  of  their  system.  Still  more 
effective  in  breeding  a  "thick  and  thin"  pro-slavery 
sentiment  at  the  South  were  the  aggressive  measures 


66  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

taken  at  the  North  for  the  annoyance  of  those  who 
held  slaves. 

The  laws  for  the  rendition  of  fugitive  slaves — not 
at  that  time  so  strict  as  they  were  afterwards  made — 
were  habitually  set  at  naught.  There  existed  a  fairly 
well  organized  system  called  "the  underground  rail- 
road" by  which  slaves  were  induced  to  run  away  and 
by  means  of  which  their  flight  was  facilitated.  All 
this  was  dictated  by  a  profound  conviction  on  the  part 
of  those  who  engaged  in  it  that  slavery  was  an  in- 
stitution so  utterly  wrong  that  any  means  by  which 
its  hold  could  be  impaired  were  right  in  morals,  no 
matter  what  the  law  might  say. 

All  this  was  done  in  defiance  of  law,  in  violation  of 
the  statutes  and  in  flagrant  disregard  of  that  com- 
pact of  reciprocity  upon  which  the  Union  was 
founded.  We  are  not  concerned  in  the  twentieth 
century  to  discuss  the  question  of  the  right  or  wrong 
of  men's  conduct  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth. 
But  if  we  would  understand  the  irritations  that  bred 
the  war  between  the  North  and  the  South,  we  must 
recognize  not  only  all  the  facts  but  equally  all  the 
refinements  by  which  they  were  judged  in  their  time. 

For  a  time  at  least  the  Missouri  Compromise  took 
the  sting  out  of  the  slavery  issue  as  a  cause  of  con- 
troversy between  the  North  and  the  South.  By  that 
compromise  the  South  had  given  up  all  claim  further 
to  extend  its  institutions  into  any  part  of  the  vast 
and  immeasurably  rich  territory  included  in  the  Louis- 
iana Purchase,  with  the  single  exception  of  Arkansas. 
All  the  region  that  now  constitutes  Iowa,  Kansas, 
Nebraska,  Minnesota,  the  two  Dakotas — and  all  the 


The  "Irrepressible  Conflict''  b% 

vast  territories  west  of  those  states, — ^were  foreor- 
dained by  that  agreement  to  be  erected  into  free 
states.  South  of  the  dead  line  established  by  the 
agreement  there  remained  the  territory  of  Arkansas 
and  nothing  else.  Arkansas  was  admitted  to  the 
Union  as  a  slave  state  in  1836  and  in  the  next  year 
the  balance  of  power  in  the  Senate  and  the  electoral 
college  was  restored  by  the  admission  of  Michigan 
as  a  free  state.  There  remained  within  the  limits  of 
our  national  domain  no  other  acre  of  territory  except 
in  Florida,  into  which  under  the  terms  of  the  Mis- 
souri Compromise  the  southern  emigrant  could  take 
his  slave  property  with  him,  while  to  the  northern 
emigrant  there  was  opened  a  possession  rivaling  the 
greatest  empires  of  earth  in  area  and  in  prospective 
productiveness. 

But  for  twenty-five  years  the  compromise  served 
in  a  great  degree  to  allay  the  asperities  of  the  slavery 
controversy.  The  anti-slavery  sentiment  at  the  North 
was  for  the  time  satisfied  with  the  assurance  that 
with  the  exceptions  of  Louisiana,  Missouri  and  Ar- 
kansas, all  the  great  domain  embraced  in  the  Louisiana 
Purchase  was  by  that  compromise  forever  devoted  to 
the  system  of  free  labor;  that  perhaps  a  dozen  pros- 
pective free  states  of  inestimable  wealth  and  incalcul- 
able population  were  destined  in  the  near  future  to  be 
added  to  the  Union,  while  with  the  exceptions  of 
Florida  and  Arkansas,  no  further  slave  states  could  be 
created.  The  South  in  its  turn  was  satisfied  with  the 
recognition  which  the  compromise  gave  to  slave  pro- 
perty as  entitled  to  equal  protection  in  national  law 
at  least  with  other  property. 


CHAPTER  IV 

The  Annexation  of  Texas 

If  matters  had  remained  as  they  were,  there  is 
little  room  for  doubt  that  the  settlement  reached  in 
the  Missouri  Compromise  would  have  endured  for 
another  generation  at  the  least.  It  is  true  that,  once 
raised,  the  issue  between  free  labor  and  slavery  was, 
as  Mr.  Seward  afterwards  said,  "an  irrepressible 
conflict."  It  is  morally  certain  that  sooner  or  later, 
in  one  way  or  in  another,  it  was  bound  to  lead  to  a 
decisive  struggle  either  of  war  or  of  diplomacy 
between  the  North  and  the  South.  But  we  are 
dealing  now  vdth  facts  and  not  with  probabilities; 
with  events  and  not  with  conjectures;  and  the  facts 
and  events  strongly  suggest  that  if  no  new  condition 
had  intervened  to  disturb  the  settlement  made  by  the 
Missouri  Compromise,  that  adjustment  of  the  vexed 
and  vexing  slavery  question  would  have  endured  for 
at  least  a  generation  longer  than  in  fact  it  did. 

The  new  circumstance  that  intervened  was  the  an- 
nexation of  Texas.  Texas  was  a  vast  territory,  un- 
defined as  to  its  limits  at  that  time,  but  covering  an 
area  eight  or  ten  times  greater  than  that  of  the  largest 
state  then  in  the  Union.  It  included  the  present 
state  of  Texas,  New  Mexico,  and  a  large  area  be- 
sides. It  had  been  a  part  of  Mexico,  peopled  chiefly 
by  emigrants  from  the  United  States  under  whose 

58 


The  Annexation  of  Texas  59 

inspiration  it  had  revolted  and  achieved  its  independ- 
ence as  a  republic. 

Its  desire  for  annexation  to  the  Union  was  quite 
natural  and  inevitable  and  but  for  slavery  that  de- 
sire would  have  been  reciprocated  throughout  the 
United  States.  It  was  easily  foreseen,  however,  that 
the  annexation  of  this  vast  territory,  lying  as  it  did 
ISouth  of  the  line  that  set  the  limit  to  slavery,  would 
open  to  that  institution  an  opportunity  of  expansion 
scarcely  less  than  that  opened  to  free  labor  by  the 
Missouri  Compromise.  — 

The  policy  of  annexation  was  bitterly  opposed  on 
this  ground  and  additionally  because  of  the  practical 
certainty  that  annexation  would  involve  a  war  with 
Mexico. 

Years  before  that  time,  Henry  Clay  had  severely 
criticized  the  administration  for  having  failed  to  in- 
sist upon  our  right  to  Texas  as  a  part  of  the  Louis- 
iana Purchase,  but  now,  in  his  anxiety  to  keep  the 
slavery  question  out  of  politics  because  of  the  dan- 
ger it  involved  to  the  Union,  he  was  strongly  opposed 
to  the  annexation  policy. 

When,  in  1844,  it  was  deemed  certain  that  Clay 
and  Van  Buren  would  be  the  rival  candidates  for 
president,  those  statesmen,  being  personal  friends, 
met  at  Clay's  residence  at  Ashland,  and  together 
planned  to  keep  the  Texan  question  out  of  the  coming 
campaign.  Their  agreement  was  that  each  should 
publish  a  letter — at  about  the  same  time — opposing 
the  annexation  of  Texas  and  the  ratification  of  the 
treaty,  which  was  then  pending,  to  accomplish  that 
Ipurpose. 


60  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

The  letters  were  published,  but  their  effect  was 
precisely  the  reverse  of  that  which  was  intended. 
The  Whigs  nominated  Clay  by  acclamation,  but  the 
Democrats  of  the  South  took  offense  at  Van  Buren's 
letter  and  nominated  in  his  stead  James  K.  Polk, 
an  uncompromising  advocate  of  annexation.  Thus 
the  painstaking  effort  that  had  been  made  by  Clay 
and  Van  Buren  to  eliminate  this  annexation  question 
from  the  presidential  campaign  had  for  its  actual 
effect  the  making  of  that  question  the  paramount  is- 
sue of  the  contest. 

Thus  the  slavery  question  became  again  dominant 
in  national  politics  with  a  greater  disturbing  force 
than  ever.  For  the  agitation  in  politics  of  a  question 
concerning  which  men's  consciences  or  self-interests 
are  strongly  enlisted — and  this  question  involved  both 
— ^must  always  and  everywhere  intensify  feeling, 
arouse  passion  and  consolidate  partisan  activity. 

The  result  in  this  case  was  to  intensify  the  senti- 
ment of  hostility  to  slavery  at  the  North  and  to  break 
down  the  sentiment  in  behalf  of  emancipation  which 
had  previously  been  strong  though  decreasing  at  the 
South.  The  agitation  of  those  years  continued  to 
the  end,  and  in  its  course  it  slowly  but  surely  changed 
the  conditions  of  the  problem.  At  the  North  it  made 
anti-slavery  endeavor  respectable,  where  before  it  had 
been  looked  upon  with  frowning  as  an  activity  which 
threatened  that  Union  which  was  the  chief  object  of 
American  adoration.  At  the  South,  by  putting  men 
on  the  defensive  and  filling  them  with  a  feeling  that 
they  were  menaced  in  their  homes,  it  slowly  but 
surely  broke  down  the  old  conviction  that  slavery  was 


The  Annexation  of  Texas  61 

an  evil  to  be  cured  and  ultimate  emancipation  a  na- 
tional good  to  be  sought  by  every  safe  means  that 
human  ingenuity  could  devise. 

At  the  North  it  gave  birth  to  a  party  willing  to 
sacrifice  the  Union  itself,  in  behalf  of  the  cause  of 
anti-slavery.  At  the  South  it  gave  birth  to  a  new 
party  ready  to  defend  and  perpetuate  slavery  at  all 
hazards  and  at  the  cost  of  a  dissolution  of  the  Union  if 
that  should  become  necessary. 

In  addition  to  this,  as  the  years  went  on  this  new 
agitation  of  the  slavery  question  revived  with  added 
intensity  the  old  jealousy  which  the  states  had  felt 
toward  the  national  power.  Of  that  we  shall  speak 
later.    Let  us  first  outline  the  course  of  events. 

Texas  was  annexed.  The  Mexican  war  followed, 
ending  in  the  additional  annexation  of  an  imperial 
domain  including  all  that  we  now  know  as  California, 
Utah,  Colorado,  Nevada  and  the  neighboring  states 
and  territories.  The  question  at  once  arose.  What 
shall  we  do  with  these  new  lands?  A  large  part  of 
them  lay  south  of  the  slavery  dead  line.  Should  that 
part  be  open  to  slavery?  Texas,  itself  a  slave  state, 
was  authorized  by  the  terms  of  the  contract  of  annex- 
ation to  form  itself  into  four  states  with  eight  sena- 
tors and  at  least  twelve  electoral  votes  which  a  rapid 
immigration  might  increase  to  twenty  or  forty  within 
a  brief  while.  Arizona  and  New  Mexico,  claimed 
by  Texas  as  a  part  of  its  domain,  seemed  practically 
certain  to  become  independent  states.  California, — 
even  now  extending  from  the  latitude  of  Boston  to 
the  latitude  of  Savannah  and  reaching  inland  half 
as  far  as  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Mississippi — ^had 


62  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

at  least  one-half  its  area  and  the  better  half,  lying 
south  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  line.  Moreover 
the  terms  of  the  compromise  did  not  forbid  the  exten- 
sion of  slavery  even  into  the  whole  of  the  California 
country,  a  region  that  might  easily  be  carved  into  ten 
or  a  dozen  states,  for  the  restrictions  of  the  compro- 
mise applied  only  to  territory  acquired  by  the  Louisi- 
ana Purchase. 

Here  surely  was  cause  enough  for  controversy. 
And  a  new  reason  had  arisen  for  intense  obstinacy  in 
controversy.  J^et  us  consider  this  a  little  carefully. 
The  ant:  slavery  agitation  at  the  North  was  growing 
more  and  more  aggressively  hostile.  In  common  with 
the  pro-slavery  sentiment  at  the  South  it  had  begun 
to  appeal  to  the  old  and  dying  sentiment  of  states' 
rights  for  the  justification  of  its  attitude,  thus  re- 
viving a  controversy  between  the  national  sovereignty 
and  the  independence  of  the  states,  which  had  been 
largely  allayed  by  the  progress  of  time. 

Northern  states  refused  to  make  themselves  parties 
to  slavery  even  at  command  of  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment. They  refused  to  lend  their  courts  and  jails 
and  sheriffs  to  the  work  of  returning  to  slavery  ne- 
groes who  had  run  away  from  bondage  at  the  South. 
They  enacted  laws  in  assertion  of  their  State  sov- 
ereignty which  in  effect  nullified  the  laws  of  the 
Nation  and  effectually  obstructed  their  execution. 
We  are  writing  now  of  the  period  from  1845  to  1860, 
and  not  of  a  particular  year. 

Here  was  that  revival  of  the  old  states'  rights 
controversy  with  the  Federal  authority,  of  which 
mention  has  been  made  before. 


The  Annexation  of  Texas  68 

It  was  met  on  the  other  side  by  an  equally  deter- 
mined assertion  of  states'  rights.  There  was  nowhere 
any  question  that  every  state  in  the  Union — except  as 
forbidden  by  the  cession  of  the  Northwest  Territory 
or  by  the  Missouri  Compromise — ^had  full  authority 
to  sanction  or  forbid  the  institution  of  slavery  within 
its  own  borders  at  its  own  free  will.  But  there  was 
a  party  at  the  North  which  contended  that  slavery 
was  a  wrong  so  enormous  that  it  ought  to  be  exter- 
minated by  the  high  hand  of  Federal  force;  that  the 
disruption  of  the  Union  as  an  incident  to  such  ex- 
termination of  the  system  would  be  a  small  price  to 
pay  for  an  end  so  beneficent.  The  abolitionists 
denounced  the  Constitution  itself  as  "a  covenant  with 
hell,"  because  it  permitted  the  several  states  to  decide 
for  themselves  whether  or  not  they  would  permit 
African  slavery  within  their  borders,  and  because  it 
authorized  laws  compelling  the  rendition  of  fugitive 
slaves. 

On  the  other  hand  there  was  growing  up  at  the 
South  a  party  that  preferred  the  disruption  of  the 
Union  to  a  longer  continuance  of  existing  conditions, 
a  party  weary  of  struggling  for  what  it  held  to  be 
the  rights  of  the  states  under  the  Constitution  and 
disposed  instead  to  resort  to  the  ultimate  right  of 
withdrawal  from  the  Union  which  the  South  claimed 
then,  as  New  England  had  claimed  it  during  the  war 
of  1812,  as  a  reserved  privilege  of  the  states. 

The  slavery  question  had  not  only  entered  again 
into  national  politics,  but  had  become  well-nigh  the^ 
only  question  of  politics,  state  and  national. 

Congress  was  flooded  with  daily  petitions  for  the 


64}  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  and 
for  the  prohibition  of  the  sale  of  slaves  from  one  state 
to  another.  Southern  and  some  Northern  members 
opposed  the  reception  of  these  petitions  and  en- 
deavored to  secure  rules  to  lay  them  on  the  table  with- 
out debate  and  without  reference  to  any  committee. 
This  policy  was  stoutly  opposed  on  the  ground  that 
it  was  in  derogation  of  that  "right  to  petition"  which 
in  all  free  lands  is  held  to  be  inherent  in  the  citizen. 
Debate  ran  high  on  this  and  like  questions,  and  be- 
came intensely  acrimonious. 

When  the  peace  settlement  with  Mexico  was  pend- 
ing, a  bill  to  authorize  the  rectification  of  boundaries 
by  the  purchase  of  a  large  territory  from  Mexico  was 
presented  in  Congress.  Mr.  Wilmot  of  Pennsylvania, 
in  1846,  moved  as  an  amendment  a  proviso — ^known 
in  history  as  "The  Wilmot  Proviso" — stipulating  that 
slavery  should  never  be  permitted  in  any  of  the  terri- 
tory to  be  thus  acquired. 

This  additionally  intensified  the  controversy,  and 
while  the  Wilmot  Proviso,  though  adopted  by  the 
House  of  Representatives,  was  rejected  by  the  Sen- 
ate and  never  became  law,  its  suggestion  and  the 
House's  adoption  of  it  were  accepted  by  the  South 
as  an  additional  evidence  of  the  uncompromising 
hostility  of  the  anti-slavery  party,  and  of  a  deter- 
mination at  the  North  to  use  the  Federal  power  for 
the  limitation,  the  restriction  and  the  ultimate  ex- 
termination of  slavery. 

In  the  meantime  a  sentiment  against  abolitionism 
had  grown  up  at  the  North  which  was  implacably 
intolerant  of  opinion.     Owen  Love  joy  was  put  to 


The  Anneooation  of  Teooas  65 

death  by  an  Illinois  mob  for  his  offense  in  publishing 
an  aggressively  abolitionist  newspaper.  Other  men 
suffered  persecution  upon  similar  account.  News- 
paper offices  were  wrecked  and  their  proprietors  sorely 
dealt  with  by  mobs  in  states  which  by  their  organic 
law  forbade  slavery  and  the  people  of  which  had  no 
interest  in  the  institution.  They  regarded  all  aboli- 
tionist movements  as  agitations  seriously  threatening 
the  Union  and  recklessly  risking  the  public  peace. 
They  were  ready  to  resort  to  mob  violence  by  way 
of  repressing  activities  which  they  regarded  as  de- 
structive of  public  order  and  seriously  menacing  to 
the  Union,  which  had  come  to  be  an  object  of  adora- 
tion to  the  great  majority  of  Americans. 

Thus  the  controversy  involved  violence  and  lawless- 
ness at  the  North  even  more  than  at  the  South. 

Again  the  anti-slavery  propagandists  at  the  North 
were  men  o'T^Yewd  intelligence  as  well  as  men  of 
profound  convictions  as  to  the  absolute  righteousness 
of  their  cause.  They  beheved  without  doubt  or  ques- 
tion that  anything  which  might  help  to  destroy  slavery 
was  right.  To  that  end  they  were  ready  to  violate 
law,  to  commit  acts  which  the  law — improperly  as 
they  thought — denounced  as  criminal,  and  even  to 
destroy  the  American  Republic  if  by  that  means  they 
could  extirpate  the  system  of  human  bondage.  They 
were  devotees  of  a  cause  that  admitted  of  no  com- 
promise or  qualification.  They  were  crusaders  at  war 
who  regarded  all  means  as  righteous  that  might  lead 
to  what  they  believed  to  be  a  righteous  end.  This 
is  not  the  place  in  which  to  question  the  correctness 
of  their  belief  or  to  criticize  their  conduct.    Our  con- 

1-5 


66  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

cern  is  merely  to  record  the  facts  and  trace  the  con- 
sequences of  them. 

The  mails  offered  an  easy  and  convenient  means  by 
which  these  propagandists  could  address  themselves 
to  other  minds  than  their  own,  or  those  in  known  sym- 
pathy with  them.  Accordingly  they  freely  used  the 
mails  as  a  means  of  impressing  their  anti-slavery 
convictions  upon  black  men  or  white  at  the  South. 

To  them  the  literature  which  they  sought  thus  to 
circulate  in  the  South  was  nothing  more  than  an  ap- 
peal to  reason  and  the  sense  of  right.  But  to  the 
Southerner,  whose  family  was  at  the  mercy  of  a 
multitude  of  slaves,  it  seemed  a  very  different  thing 
and  one  immeasurably  more  menacing.  To  him  it 
seemed  an  incitement  to  servile  insurrection  in  a  region 
where  such  an  insurrection  could  not  fail  to  result  in 
unspeakable  horrors  and  calamities. 

It  is  a  fact  imperfectly  understood  outside  of  the 
South  that  the  average  negro  there  was  not  at  all 
such  as  the  planter  usually  carried  about  with  him 
in  the  capacity  of  body  servant  to  himself  or  maid  to 
his  wife  or  daughter;  not  at  all  the  "intelligent  contra- 
band" so  dear  to  the  newsgatherers  of  the  war  time; 
not  at  all  a  Booker  T.  Washington  *  or  a  Frederick 
Douglass,  or  a  Blanche  K.  Bruce  or  a  Montgomery, 
but  a  hopelessly  ignorant,  passion-impregnated,  half- 
savage,  held  to  good  behavior  only  by  fear  of  the 
white  man's  superior  power.  On  the  coast  of  South 
Carolina  and  in  other  regions  the  negro  was  in  many 
cases  even  a  whole  savage — recently  imported,  clad  in 
breech  clout  and  ebonized  nakedness  and  unable  to 
speak  or  understand  any  language  except  the  Congo 
gibberish  to  which  he  had  been  born. 


The  Annexation  of  Teocas  67 

Of  course  literature  made  no  direct  appeal  to  crea- 
tures of  such  sort.  But  there  were  many  educated  or 
at  least  literate  negroes  at  the  South — some  of  them 
slaves  and  some  of  them  "free  men  of  color"  as  the 
law  phrase  at  that  time  ran.  If  incited  thereto,  these 
intelligent  blacks  might  very  easily  have  organized  the 
physical  force  of  the  multitude  of  more  ignorant 
negroes  for  an  insurrection  which  would  have  involved 
the  wholesale  slaughter  of  white  women  and  children 
and  a  servile  war  more  horrible  in  its  incidents  and 
consequences  than  any  that  the  world  has  known  since 
time  itself  began. 

It  was  altogether  natural  that  the  anti-slavery 
agitators  who  had  made  up  their  minds  to  destroy 
slavery  at  all  hazards  and  at  all  costs  and  who  held 
all  other  considerations  to  be  but  as  dust  in  the 
balance  in  comparison  with  that  one  supreme  desire 
of  their  souls,  should  seek  by  means  of  the  mails  to 
prbpagate  their  ideas  in  the  South  and  among  the 
slaves  themselves.  But  it  was  equally  natural  that 
the  white  men  of  the  South,  whose  wives  and  children 
as  well  as  themselves  and  their  property  were  menaced 
by  such  a  possibility,  should  seek  to  avert  it  by  any 
means  within  their  grasp.  Their  impulse  was  dictated 
by  the  primal  human  instinct  of  self-preservation — an 
instinct  that  listens  to  no  argument  and  stops  at  no 
act  which  may  be  necessary  to  avert  the  impending 
danger. 

These  people  saw  their  hearthstones  menaced  by 
this  use  of  the  mails.  They  saw  in  the  mails  a  certain 
socialistic  use  of  the  people's  power  for  a  common 
purpose.     They  paid  taxes  for  the  maintenance  of 


68  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

those  mails,  and  they  could  not  see  why  a  mail  system 
which  represented  and  was  supported  by  all  the  peo- 
ple of  all  the  states  should  be  used  for  the  destruction 
and  desecration  of  the  homes  of  a  part  of  those  people 
— for  the  instigation  of  a  servile  revolt  which  could 
not  fail  to  result  in  horrors  so  unspeakable  that  we 
may  not  even  suggest  them,  except  vaguely,  in  this 
place. 

Since  that  time  it  has  become  a  commonplace  of 
law  to  forbid  the  use  of  the  mails  to  those  who  would 
use  them  for  any  purpose  inimical  to  the  public  wel- 
fare; but  at  that  time  this  thought  had  gained  no 
place  in  postal  administration,  and  the  desire  of  the 
Southerners  to  purge  the  mails  of  incendiary  liter- 
ature which  threatened  to  create  a  servile  insurrection 
with  all  its  necessarily  horrible  accompaniments,  was 
put  aside  as  an  effort  to  "tamper  with  the  mail." 
Contrary  to  all  modern  conceptions  as  to  the  mails 
it  was  held  that  they  were  sacred  alike  to  good  and 
to  evil  purposes  and  that  any  matter  deposited  in 
them  must  be  delivered  to  the  person  to  whom  it  was 
addressed  in  utter  disregard  of  any  question  of 
public  polity  and  in  absolute  indifference  to  the 
use  which  the  person  addressed  might  be  disposed  to 
make  of  the  printed  or  written  matter  sent  to  him. 

In  our  time,  where  the  post  office  refuses  even  to 
rent  a  box  to  any  man  who  cannot  demonstrate  to  the 
postmaster  his  need  of  it  for  legitimate  business  pur- 
poses, and  when  the  delivery  of  men's  mail  is  delib- 
erately and  quite  unquestioningly  stopped  by  the 
postal  authorities  upon  the  mere  suspicion  that  their 
business  may  be  in  some  way  detrimental  to  the  public 


The  Anneooation  of  Texas  69 

welfare,  we  find  it  difficult  to  understand  why  the 
Southern  objection  to  the  distribution  of  dangerously- 
incendiary  matter  through  the  mails — matter  which 
threatened  those  American  citizens  with  massacre  for 
themselves  and  something  immeasurably  worse  than 
massacre  for  their  womankind — should  not  have  re- 
ceived respectful  attention. 

In  the  light  of  our  modern  postal  practice  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  understand  the  anger  and  resentment  with 
which  the  demand  of  the  Southerners  was  received 
for  the  exclusion  from  the  mails  of  matter  the  cir- 
culation of  which  threatened  themselves,  their  homes 
and  their  famihes  with  calamities  too  horrible  to  be 
contemplated  with  complacency. 

But  it  must  be  remembered  that  on  the  other 
hand  the  extirpation  of  slavery  was  confidently  be- 
lieved to  be  an  end  so  righteous  as  to  justify  any 
means  that  might  be  employed  for  its  accomplish- 
ment; that  the  holding  of  men  in  bondage,  whether 
willingly  or  unwillingly,  whether  by  virtue  of  an  in- 
heritance that  carried  other  and  controlling  obligations 
with  it,  or  by  the  speculative  purchase  of  men's  labor, 
was  a  crime  deserving  of  any  calamity  that  might 
fall  upon  those  who  participated  in  it  in  the  process 
of  its  extijiction. 

In  other  words  there  was  intolerance  on  both  sides; 
misunderstanding  on  both;  an  utter  failure  on  each 
side  to  grasp  the  considerations  that  controlled  the 
acts  of  men  on  the  other  side ;  a  fanatical  dogmatism 
on  the  one  side  and  upon  the  other  that  was  open  to 
no  argument,  no  consideration  of  fact  or  circumstance, 
no  reasoning  of  any  kind. 


70  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

.  Thus  came  about  the  "irrepressible  conflict."  These 
were  the  influences  that  created  it  and  forced  it  to  an 
issue  of  politics.  How  it  resulted  in  the  most  stu- 
pendous war  of  modern  times  must  be  related  in 
other  chapters. 


CHAPTER  V 

The  Compromise  of  1850 

The  Mexican  war  and  the  subsequent  negotia- 
tions added  a  vast  territory  to  the  national  domain. 
Much  of  it  lay  south  of  the  Missouri  Compromise 
line,  and  into  that  part  of  it  at  least  the  advocates 
of  slavery  confidently  expected  to  extend  their  labor 
system. 

The  introduction  of  the  Wilmot  Proviso  and  its 
passage  by  the  House  did  not  indeed  result  in  the 
exclusion  of  slavery  from  those  territories,  for  the 
reason  that  the  proviso,  failing  in  the  Senate,  did  not 
become  law. 

But  it  alarmed  the  South.  By  the  Southerners  of 
the  more  radical  pro-slavery  school  it  was  accepted 
as  a  notice  to  quit ;  a  notification  that  so  far  as  North- 
ern anti-slavery  sentiment  could  control  the  matter, 
there  was  to  be  no  further  addition  of  a  single  acre 
to  the  slave  territory  of  the  Union ;  that  so  far  as  that 
sentiment  could  influence  national  politics,  the  power 
of  the  Federal  Government  was  thenceforth  and  for- 
ever to  be  exercised  to  prevent  the  extension  of 
slavery  into  any  new  territory  acquired  or  to  be 
acquired  by  the  Union  north  or  south  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise  line,  and  in  the  end  to  abolish  the  system 
altogether. 

Let   us   clearly   understand   this   situation.      The 

71 


72  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

Wilmot  Proviso  and  all  the  attempted  legislation,  by 
which  it  was  sought  to  confine  slavery  within  the 
boundaries  prescribed  for  it  by  existing  conditions, 
seemed  to  the  opponents  of  slavery  merely  a  legiti- 
mate effort  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  free  labor  was 
national,  while  slavery  was  a  permitted  evil  within 
prescribed  limits  permitted  solely  because  within  those 
limits  the  national  power  was  not  authorized  to  exert 
itself  for  the  extermination  of  the  system.  On  the 
other  hand,  all  these  things  seemed  to  the  Southern 
mind  to  be  an  utterly  unjust  discrimination  against 
a  part  of  the  people.  The  territories  involved  in  the 
controversy  had  become  national  possessions,  they 
contended,  largely  through  the  activities  of  Southern 
men  and  Southern  statesmanship.  It  was  felt  to  be 
a  grievous  wrong  that  Southern  men  should  be  for- 
bidden to  emigrate  to  those  territories  on  equal  terms 
with  other  citizens  of  the  Union  or  that  thus  emigrat- 
ing they  should  be  forbidden  to  take  with  them  their 
slave  property,  which  represented  in  part  their  indus- 
trial system  but  in  far  greater  part  their  domestic  life. 
The  very  proposal  thus  to  exclude  them  from  an 
equal  participation  in  the  opportunities  and  the  priv- 
ileges opened  to  other  citizens  of  the  Republic  by  the 
acquisition  of  these  new  territories  seemed  to  them 
a  threat,  a  notification  that  henceforth  they  were  to 
be  treated  not  as  citizens  of  the  Union  entitled  to  the 
same  protection  and  the  same  privileges  that  were 
extended  to  other  citizens,  but  as  inferior  and  offend- 
ing persons,  persons  graciously  permitted  to  exist, 
but  persons  to  be  excluded,  because  of  their  offenses, 
from  an  equal  participation  in  the  conquests  and  land 


The  Compromise  of  1850  73 

purchases  of  the  Nation  and  from  the  enjoyment  of 
a  share  of  the  benefits  resulting  from  the  addition  of 
a  great  and  immeasurably  rich  territory  to  the  na- 
tional domain. 

It  is  true  that  the  proposal  of  their  exclusion  had 
failed  to  become  law.  But  it  had  failed  by  a  margin 
so  narrow  that  its  success  might  easily  be  anticipated 
as  an  event  of  the  near  future.  It  is  true  that  neither 
the  Wilmot  Proviso  nor  any  other  legislation  sug- 
gested at  that  time  sought  to  forbid  Southerners  to 
migrate  into  the  new  territories.  But  it  was  pro- 
posed that  they  should  be  forbidden  by  law  to  take 
with  them  into  those  territories  the  slaves  upon  whose 
services  they  relied  not  only  for  agricultural  work, 
but  even  more  for  that  domestic  service  to  which  they 
had  been  accustomed  all  their  lives  to  look  for  com- 
fort. To  tell  them  that  they  might  remove  their 
households  into  the  new  territories,  but  at  the  same 
time  to  say  to  them  that  they  must  leave  behind  all 
that  had  before  contributed  to  their  prosperity  and 
to  the  comfort  of  their  domestic  arrangements,  seemed 
to  them  something  worse  than  a  mockery. 

Out  of  the  agitation  of  these  questions  arose  veryj 
important  events. 

The  old  sentiment  at  the  South  in  favor  of  a  grad- 
ual emancipation  of  the  slaves,  though  it  survived 
in  some  degree  to  the  end,  gave  place,  in  large  mea- 
sure, to  a  new  sentiment  in  behalf  of  slavery  as  a 
thing  right  in  itself,  a  sentiment  born  of  the  instinct 
of  self-preservation. 

The  manifest  disposition  to  exclude  slavery  from 
the  newly  acquired  Southern  possessions  prompted 


74  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

the  men  of  the  South  to  question  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise itself.  The  spirit  of  that  compromise  had 
been  that  slave  property  might  be  taken  into  terri- 
tories south  of  36°  30'  north  latitude,  with  the  assur- 
ance that  such  territories  might  become  slave  states, 
in  return  for  the  stipulation  of  the  South  that  all 
territory  lying  north  of  that  line  should  be  forever 
exempted  from  slavery.  When  the  new  territory  was 
acquired  from  Mexico,  a  large  part  of  it  lying  south 
of  that  line,  it  was  naturally  expected  that  in  those 
regions  the  people  of  the  slave  states  were  to  find 
an  outlet  for  emigration  as  freely  as  those  of  the 
Northern  states  found  a  like  outlet  north  of  that  line. 
When  a  determined  effort  was  made,  with  every 
prospect  of  success,  to  deny  even  this  to  them,  they 
began  seriously  to  question  a  compromise  by  which 
they  had  surrendered  so  much  and  seemed  now 
destined  to  gain  so  little.  They  had  secured  Arkan- 
sas and  Missouri  as  outlets  for  their  superfluous, 
discontented,  unfortunate  or  specially  enterprising 
population;  they  had  surrendered  all  claim  to  an 
equal  opportunity  in  Iowa,  Kansas,  Nebraska,  Min- 
nesota, the  Dakotas  and  all  the  rest  of  the  rich  regions 
embraced  in  the  Louisiana  Purchase.  Obviously,  it 
seemed  to  them,  they  had  made  a  bad  bargain,  and 
now  that  they  were  threatened  with  a  denial  of  their 
share  in  the  benefits  of  it,  so  far  as  the  territory  ac- 
quired from  Mexico  was  concerned,  they  were  dis- 
posed to  repent  them  of  it  or  at  the  very  least  to 
question  the  extent  to  which  its  terms  were  binding 
on  themselves. 

The  compromise,  they  reflected,  was  merely  a  mat- 


The  Compromise  of  1850  76 

ter  of  statutory  law.  It  had  no  constitutional  obli- 
gation back  of  it.  It  had  been  enacted  by  one  con- 
gress. It  could  be  repealed  by  another.  In  answer 
to  the  threat  to  disregard  its  spirit  in  dealing  with 
the  new  territories,  the  Southerners  made  the  counter- 
threat  to  repeal  the  compromise  itself.  It  was  all 
very  natural,  very  human,  but  to  the  Republic  it  was 
very  dangerous. 

The  lands  that  lay  north  of  the  dead  line  were  still 
territories  and  still  for  the  most  part  unoccupied. 
Nothing  more  binding  than  an  easily  repealable 
statute  forbade  Southerners  to  migrate  into  those 
territories  with  their  negroes  and  in  due  time,  by  out- 
voting Northern  immigrants,  to  make  slave  states  of 
them.  The  essence  of  the  compromise  they  held  to  be, 
that  in  return  for  the  prohibition  of  slavery  north  of 
36°  30'  north  latitude,  slavery  should  be  freely  per- 
mitted in  all  regions  lying  south  of  that  line  if  the 
people  settling  there  should  so  decide.  If  the  con- 
tract was  to  be  repudiated  on  the  one  hand,  why,  they 
asked,  should  it  not  be  equally  repudiated  on  the 
other?  If  the  Missouri  Compromise  was  to  carry 
with  it  none  of  the  benefits  it  conferred  on  the  South 
why  should  it  be  held  binding  upon  the  South  for  the 
benefit  of  the  North? 

This  seems  to  have  been  the  thought  and  attitude 
of  the  South  at  that  time,  and  it  soon  found  expres- 
sion in  legislation  and  in  attempted  legislation. 

The  discovery  of  gold  in  California  quickly  resulted 
in  such  a  peopling  of  that  region  as  made  its  admis- 
sion to  the  Union  as  a  state  a  necessity.  The  settlers 
there  were  mainly  from  the  North  and  they  naturally 


76  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

had  no  desire  to  make  a  slave  state  out  of  the  terri- 
tory. Without  waiting  for  an  enabling  act  they 
adopted  a  constitution  in  1849  and  knocked  at  the 
doors  of  the  Union  for  admission  as  a  free  state. 

Instantly  the  South  took  alarm.  Quite  half  of 
California  lay  south  of  36 '^  30'  north  latitude.  Apart 
from  its  gold,  the  region  promised  harvests  of  grain 
and  fruit  of  incalculably  greater  value  even  than  all 
the  output  of  all  its  mines.  There  was  nothing  in  the 
Missouri  Compromise  or  in  any  other  legislation  to 
forbid  the  whole  of  California  to  become  a  slave  state. 
There  was  only  the  decision  of  the  people  in  that  part 
of  the  country  that  they  wanted  the  state  to  be  free 
and  that  decision  was  not  by  any  means  unanimous. 
On  the  contrary  it  was  believed  to  be  at  least  possible 
that  if  the  territory  were  divided  into  two  substantially 
equal  parts  the  southern  half  of  it  would  elect  to  be- 
come a  slave  state. 

This  added  enormously  to  the  acrimony  of  the 
slavery  controversy.  There  had  from  the  beginning 
been  accepted  in  the  country  a  half  formulated  theory 
of  the  necessity  of  maintaining  a  "balance  of  power" 
between  the  opposing  systems  of  slavery  and  free 
labor  so  far  at  least  as  the  Senate,  representing  the 
states  as  such  without  regard  to  population,  was  con- 
cerned. From  the  beginning  slave  and  free  states 
had  been  admitted  to  the  Union  in  effect  in  couples. 
Thus  Vermont,  admitted  in  1791,  was  balanced  by 
Kentucky,  admitted  in  1792.  Tennessee  came  in  in 
1796  with  no  free  state  comrade  till  1803,  when  Ohio 
was  admitted.  Louisiana,  admitted  in  1812,  was  off- 
set by  Indiana  which  became  a  state  in  1816.    Mis- 


The  Compromise  of  1850  77 

sissippi  was  admitted  in  1817  and  Illinois  in  the 
following  year.  Alabama,  admitted  in  1819,  was 
balanced  by  Maine  in  1820.  Missouri  came  in  in 
1821  by  a  compromise  that  more  than  offset  the  omis- 
sion to  create  a  corresponding  and  compensatory 
free  state.  But  when  Arkansas  was  admitted  in  1836, 
Michigan  was  thrown  into  the  other  scale  in  1837. 
Florida  and  Texas,  annexed  in  1845,  were  balanced 
by  Iowa  in  1846  and  Wisconsin  in  1848.  But  for 
California  as  a  free  state  there  was  no  peopled  region 
that  could  be  carved  into  a  compensatory  slave  state 
and  for  that  reason,  as  well  as  because  of  the  rise  of 
the  anti-slavery  agitation  to  fever  heat,  the  contro- 
versy about  1850  took  on  an  angrier  tone  than  ever, 
and  one  more  seriously  threatening  to  the  Union. 

The  people  of  the  country  at  that  time  might  justly 
have  been  divided  into  three  classes,  viz : 

1.  Those  extreme  opponents  of  slavery  who  were 
ready  and  eager  to  sacrifice  the  Union  itself  and  the 
Constitution  to  the  accomplishment  of  their  emanci- 
pating purpose; 

2.  Those  extreme  pro-slavery  men  who  were 
equally  ready  to  wreck  the  Union  in  order  to  per- 
petuate and  extend  the  system  of  slave  labor; 

3.  Those  intense  lovers  of  the  Union,  North  and 
South,  who  were  ready  to  put  aside  and  sacrifice  their 
convictions  for  or  against  slavery  in  order  to  save 
the  Nation  from  disruption  with  all  its  horrible  con- 
sequences of  civil  war. 

This  last  class  was  at  that  time  a  dominant  major- 
ity and  for  long  afterwards  it  exercised  a  controlling 
and  restraining  influence  over  all  the  rest.    It  included 


78  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

men  at  the  South  who  earnestly  desired  the  extinction 
of  slavery,  and  other  men  at  the  South  who  were 
sincerely  convinced  that  the  slave  system  was  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  the  cultivation  of  Southern  fields 
and  that  its  perpetuation  was  justified  by  the  incur- 
able inferiority  of  the  black  race,  and  the  hopeless 
incapacity  of  the  negro  for  freedom  and  self-govern- 
ment. At  the  North  the  class  of  those  who  cared 
more  for  the  perpetuity  of  the  Union  than  for  either 
the  extinction  or  the  perpetuation  of  slavery  included 
men  of  every  shade  of  belief  as  regarded  slavery 
itself,  except  the  extreme  opponents  of  the  system. 
It  included  such  men  as  Abraham  Lincoln  who,  even 
after  the  war  was  on,  persisted  in  holding  to  his  heart 
as  his  supreme  desire  the  perpetuity  of  the  Union 
in  order,  as  he  splendidly  phrased  it  in  his  Gettysburg 
speech,  that  "Government  of  the  people  by  the  peo- 
ple and  for  the  people  might  not  perish  from  the 
earth." 

It  was  a  magnificent  conflict  of  human  forces.  In- 
cidentally it  brought  into  play  passion,  prejudice, 
malice,  groveling  self-interest  and  brutal  disregard 
of  others'  rights  and  feelings.  But  in  large  part  it 
was  dominated,  on  the  one  side  and  upon  the  other,  by 
a  love  of  liberty,  an  instinct  of  justice  and  an  exalted 
patriotism  that  did  honor  to  those  who  were  so  inspired. 

All  these  sentiments  and  aspirations  were  variously 
directed,  giving  rise  sometimes  to  contradictory 
courses  of  action.  But  he  who  would  understand  and 
interpret  the  events  of  that  time  must  fully  conceive 
the  fact  that  the  inspiring  impulses  of  the  great  ma- 
jority were  essentially  and  fundamentally  the  same 


The  Compromise  of  1850  t79 

on  both  sides,  however  variously  they  may  have  been 
interpreted  into  conduct.  Only  thus  shall  we  under- 
stand how  it  was  that  men  on  opposite  sides  of  a 
geographical  line,  men  equally  loving  liberty  and 
equally  holding  in  reverence  the  traditions  of  the 
American  Union,  fell  a-fighting  in  1861  and  for  four 
years  waged  the  bloodiest  and  most  devastating  war 
of  which  modern  history  anywhere  makes  record. 

The  controversy  with  respect  to  California  and  the 
territories  was  only  a  part  of  the  disturbing  influences 
of  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

The  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  in  Section  3 
of  Article  IV,  distinctly  imposed  upon  the  states  and 
upon  the  people  thereof  the  duty  of  returning  to 
their  masters  all  fugitive  slaves  who  might  escape 
from  one  state  to  another.  That  provision  of  the 
Constitution  was  resented,  even  to  the  point  of  vio- 
lence by  the  antagonists  of  slavery;  it  was  insisted 
upon  by  the  advocates  of  slavery — in  the  North  as 
well  as  in  the  South — to  the  border-land  of  crime. 
It  was  defeated  of  its  purpose,  not  only  by  the  acts  of 
individuals  banded  together  with  express  intent  to 
nullify  it  in  practice,  but  still  more  by  laws  enacted 
in  many  states  at  the  North  to  facilitate  its  nullifica- 
tions. The  law  officers  of  many  states  either  refused 
to  exercise  their  authority  for  the  enforcement  of  this 
law  or  going  further,  employed  their  authority  to 
prevent  its  enforcement. 

Let  us  frankly  recognize  the  fact  that  these  men 
were  in  effect  disunionists,  and  the  further  fact  that 
they  were  such  upon  conscientious  conviction.  All 
this  was  done  in  full  faith  that  it  was  right  and  in 


80  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

response  to  the  requirements  of  conscience.  But  it 
was  done  in  flagrant  violation  of  the  constitutional 
compact.  We  may  sympathize  with  the  impulses  of 
the  sheriff  or  other  officer  who  refused  to  aid  in  the 
return  of  an  escaping  negro  to  slavery,  and  still  more 
easily  we  may  sympathize  with  those  unofficial  per- 
sons who  fed  and  housed  and  expedited  escaping 
slaves,  in  their  refusal  to  aid  a  system  of  human  bond- 
age of  which  they  were  conscientiously  intolerant,  but 
on  the  other  hand  we  may  not  justly  blink  the  fact 
that  all  this  was  in  disobedience  of  the  fundamental 
law  of  the  land,  in  violation  of  that  compact  on  which 
alone  the  Union  rested,  and  in  derogation  of  property 
rights  which  the  compact  of  union  pledged  all  the 
states  to  enforce  and  all  the  people  to  respect. 

The  whole  trouble  lay  in  the  fact  that  there  was 
an  "irrepressible  conflict"  between  the  ideas  that  were 
dominant  North  and  South  and  that  laws  and  con- 
stitutions, and  compacts,  and  agreements  were  power- 
less to  enforce  themselves  or  to  get  themselves 
enforced  in  opposition  to  intense  conviction  and 
strongly  felt  sentiment. 

The  feeling  on  both  sides  ran  high  and  was  in- 
tensely intolerant.  It  was  heedless  of  reason  or  argu- 
ment. It  scofl*ed  at  compacts  and  agreements.  It 
made  of  legal  obligations  a  mockery  and  of  consti- 
tutional requirements  a  laughing  stock. 

It  entered  also  into  every  relation  of  life  and 
mischievously  disturbed  every  such  relation.  It  di- 
vided families.  It  disrupted  churches,  producing 
divisions  in  them,  some  of  which — most  of  which 
indeed — have  not  been  healed  even  in  our  present 


The  Compromise  of  1850  81 

time  when  the  war  and  slavery  and  all  things  per- 
taining to  them  are  matters  of  history. 

Along  the  line  of  the  Ohio  river,  where  one  brother 
had  gone  across  the  narrow  stream  to  Indiana  in 
search  of  fortune  while  another  had  remained  behind 
in  Kentucky,  the  specter  of  this  implacable  contro- 
versy wrought  an  estrangement  that  was  at  once 
cruel  and  unnatural.  Skiffs  lined  the  opposing 
shores.  Intercourse  was  easy  and  the  waterway  be- 
tween was  of  trifling  width;  but  the  skifi^s  were  not 
used,  and  the  intervening  waterway  was  left  un- 
crossed, because  between  those  who  dwelt  upon  the 
one  side  of  the  stream  and  those  who  lived  upon  the 
other  there  arose  the  black  shadow  of  the  irrepressible 
conflict.  They  were  friends  and  near  relatives.  Their 
homes  confronted  each  other  with  only  a  placid  stream 
between.  Their  shores  were  far  less  than  a  mile  apart, 
and  their  old  loves  for  each  other  were  uncooled,  so 
far  as  they  realized.  But  they  gradually  ceased  to 
visit  each  other.  Those  courtships  and  marriages 
which  had  been  the  frequent  occasions  of  rejoicing 
among  them  became  of  the  very  rarest  occurrence  and 
finally  ceased  to  occur  at  all.  And  all  this  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  in  northern  Kentucky  slavery  was 
scarcely  more  than  a  name  while  the  people  on  the 
other  side  of  the  river  had,  for  the  major  part,  been 
emigrants  from  Kentucky,  accustomed  in  their  child- 
hood to  such  mild  mannered  slavery  as  still  survived 
beyond  the  stream. 

Here  was  the  line  of  cleavage.  Here  was  the  bar- 
rier between  men's  minds  and  hearts  and  lives.  On 
the  one  side  slavery  was  permitted  and,  in  self-preser- 

1-6 


82  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

vation  chiefly,  was  defended.  On  the  other  side  there 
were  softening  memories  of  slavery  as  an  institution 
that  had  surrounded  the  childhood  of  those  concerned 
with  the  loving  care  and  the  affectionate  coddling  of 
negro  mammies  and  negro  uncles.  But  the  issue  be- 
tween slavery  and  antagonism  to  it  had  become  so 
sharply  accentuated  that  even  family  affection  and 
memories  of  childhood  and  the  influences  of  near 
neighborhood  and  the  ties  of  close  kinship  could  not 
break  down  the  barrier. 

Still  further,  there  had  begun  to  grow  up  at  the 
North  a  political  party  whose  sole  bond  of  union  was 
antipathy  to  slavery.  It  was  not  at  all  respectable, 
for  even  yet  it  was  not  deemed  respectable  in  many 
parts  of  the  North  to  be  an  Abolitionist,  and  this  was 
distinctly  an  Abolitionist  party.  Its  sole  reason  for 
being  was  its  purpose  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  United 
States.  It  was  still  a  feeble  party,  so  far  as  the  num- 
ber of  votes  it  could  command  was  concerned,  but  it 
was  prepared  to  ally  itself  with  any  others  whose  pur- 
poses might  tend  even  in  the  smallest  degree  in  the 
direction  in  which  it  wished  the  Republic  to  go.  It 
was  ready  to  join  in  any  effort  that  might  help  toward 
the  extirpation  of  slavery,  but  its  avowed  purpose  was 
not  to  assail  slavery  where  that  institution  legally 
existed,  but  to  prevent  its  extension  to  any  new  lands. 

In  that  purpose  many  thousands  sympathized  who 
would  scornfully  have  resented  the  imputation  that 
they  were  Abolitionists. 

This  new  "Free-soil"  party  had  no  less  a  personage 
than  Ex-president  Martin  Van  Buren  as  its  candidate 
for  the  presidency  in  1848  and  while  its  following 


The  Compromise  of  1850  83 

and  its  poll  of  votes  were  small  its  menace  seemed  to 
men  of  the  South  very  great,  a  seeming  that  was 
destined  to  be  confirmed  ere  long.  In  1840  the  Anti- 
slavery  candidate,  Birney,  had  received  only  7,059 
votes  in  the  whole  country,  scarcely  enough  to  be  re- 
corded in  the  election  returns.  In  1844  the  same 
candidate  received  62,300  votes — a  great  increase, 
but  still  not  enough  to  be  reckoned  seriously.  In 
1848  Martin  Van  Buren,  as  the  candidate  of  this 
Free-soil  party,  received  291,263  votes,  thus  greatly 
more  than  quadrupling  the  highest  directly  Anti- 
slavery  vote  previously  polled.  In  1856  the  Free-soil 
party  under  the  name  of  the  Republican  party,  was 
in  effect  the  only  serious  antagonist  of  the  Democ- 
racy, the  only  party  that  seriously  disputed  with  it  the 
control  of  the  National  Government.  In  that  elec- 
tion the  new  party  polled  1,341,264  votes,  against 
1,838,169  for  the  Democratic  candidate.  It  carried 
no  less  than  114  electoral  votes  out  of  a  total  of  296, 
its  successful  antagonist  carrying  174. 

All  this  occurred  after  the  time  which  we  are  now 
considering,  but  the  facts  are  presented  here  because 
their  coming  was  anticipated  in  1850  and  because 
they  serve  to  illustrate  the  rapidity  with  which  the 
"irrepressible  conflict"  grew  in  intensity  and  fervor. 

In  1850  the  country  was  on  the  verge  of  a  revolu- 
tion. 

The  Southerners  were  exasperated  to  the  point  oft 
armed  revolt  by  the  proposal  to  deny  to  them  what 
they  deemed  their  fair  participation  in  the  fruits  ofi 
the  Mexican  War;  by  the  increasingly  active  antag- 
onism of  the  North ;  by  the  aggressive  opposition  there 


84  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

to  the  enforcement  of  property  rights  in  fugitive 
slaves;  by  the  condemnatory  tone  of  the  Northern 
press,  pulpit  and  platform;  by  the  insistent  use  of 
the  mails  for  the  circulation  of  literature  which  the 
South  deemed  dangerously  incendiary;  by  the  con- 
tinual inflow  of  petitions  to  Congress  for  the  abolition 
of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia ;  and  by  a  score 
of  other  annoyances  which  were  ceaseless  in  their 
aggression. 

The  feeling  grew  in  the  South  that  there  was  no 
longer  any  place  in  the  Union  for  those  states  that 
permitted  slavery ;  that  there  was  no  longer  any  toler- 
ance for  their  people ;  that  a  war  upon  them  had  begun 
which  would  stop  at  nothing  short  of  the  forcible  ab- 
olition of  their  institutions,  with  all  of  chaos  and 
insurrection  and  servile  revolt  which  they  believed  to 
be  the  necessary  sequences  of  such  abolition. 

They  were  affronted,  offended  and  alarmed. 
States'  rights  had  been  freely  invoked  against  them 
as  a  means  of  evading  and  defeating  such  laws  as  then 
existed  for  the  rendition  of  fugitive  slaves.  They,  in 
their  turn,  looked  to  states'  rights  as  perhaps  afford- 
ing to  them  a  way  of  escape  from  their  difficulties  and 
tribulations. 

"If  the  Union  can  no  longer  protect  us,"  they  asked 
themselves,  "why  should  we  remain  parties  to  that 
compact?  If  we  are  to  have  no  share  in  its  benefits 
or  even  in  its  territorial  conquests  and  purchases,  why 
should  we  go  on  bearing  our  share  of  its  burdens  and 
obligations?  If  it  cannot  or  will  not  fulfil  those 
duties  which  it  has  assumed  towards  us,  why  should 
we  not  repudiate  those  obligations  which  we  have 


The  Compromise  of  1850  85 

assumed  in  return  for  its  pledges  of  protection?  If 
we  cannot  be  members  of  the  Union  upon  equal  terms 
with  other  members  of  the  Union,  why  should  we 
continue  to  be  members  of  the  Union  at  all?" 

There  was  nowhere  in  the  South  the  slightest  doubt 
of  the  right  of  any  state  in  the  Union  to  withdraw 
from  the  compact  and  resume  those  attributes  of 
sovereignty  which,  in  creating  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment, the  several  states  had  delegated  to  it.  Indeed 
up  to  that  time  there  had  been  scarcely  any  doubt 
anywhere,  North  or  South,  of  the  existence  of  this 
right  of  the  states,  as  a  right  reserved  in  the  forma- 
tion of  the  Federal  Union. 

Accordingly  there  grew  up  in  the  South  a  dis- 
tinctly "disunion"  party,  a  party  which  favored  the 
withdrawal  of  the  slave  states  from  a  confederacy 
which,  they  contended,  had  failed  to  render  them  the 
protection  or  secure  to  them  the  equality  of  rights 
and  privileges  which  it  had  been  instituted  to  render 
and  secure. 

This  impulse  of  withdrawal  was  very  strong,  but 
like  the  radical  impulse  of  disunion  at  the  North  for 
the  sake  of  abolition  at  all  costs  or  hazards,  it  was  for 
a  long  time  overborne  by  the  dominant  sentiment  of 
devotion  to  the  Union  and  loyalty  to  the  traditions 
of  the  Republic.  The  majority  at  the  South  were 
unwilling  to  give  up  the  memory  of  Bunker  Hill, 
Lexington,  Concord,  Saratoga  and  Trenton,  as  a 
national  heritage  of  glory  and  likewise  the  majority 
at  the  North  were  reluctant  to  forget  the  victories 
of  Marion  and  Sumter,  or  to  relinquish  the  glorious 
memory  of  Yorktown, 


86  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

Thus  in  1850  there  was  a  party  at  the  North  eager 
to  sacrifice  everything,  including  the  Repubhc  itself 
with  all  its  traditions,  in  order  to  secure  the  extinction 
of  slavery;  and  there  was  also  a  similarly  radical 
party  at  the  South  ready  and  willing  to  destroy  the 
Union  in  order  to  be  rid  of  what  it  regarded  as  the 
unreasonable  and  intemperate  hostility  to  the  South 
within  the  Union. 

Both  these  radical  parties  were  in  an  apparently 
hopeless  minority  each  in  its  own  section,  but  each 
manifested  a  tendency  to  growth  which  boded  ill  for 
the  future.  Nevertheless  the  overwhelming  majority 
of  men  on  the  one  side  and  upon  the  other  intensely 
detested  and  bitterly  resented  every  suggestion  to 
sacrifice  the  Union  for  any  imaginable  cause  or  upon 
any  conceivable  occasion. 

It  was  to  this  great  majority.  North  and  South, 
that  Henry  Clay  at  that  critical  time  appealed.  The 
dominant  passion  of  that  statesman's  soul  was  his 
love  of  the  Union  and  his  desire  that  it  might  endure 
during  all  time.  To  that  one  god  of  his  adoration 
he  had  made  sacrifices  from  the  beginning.  In  its 
behalf  he  had  put  aside  his  lifelong  desire  for  the 
gradual  emancipation  of  the  slaves.  In  its  behalf  he 
had  sacrificed  the  supreme  ambition  of  his  life — the 
ambition  to  be  president.  In  behalf  of  the  Union 
he  had  made  himself  anathema  maranatha — at  the 
North  as  a  slaveholder  and  at  the  South  as  an  aboli- 
tionist. He  was  in  fact  both  at  once.  He  held 
slaves  under  a  system  of  which  he  could  not  rid  him- 
self without  arming  them,  in  Jefferson's  phrase, 
"with  freedom  and  a  dagger."     He  wanted  them 


The  Compromise  of  1850  87 

emancipated  and  was  ready  to  make  sacrifice  in  that 
behalf,  but  on  the  other  hand  he  desired  beyond  all 
other  things  the  preservation  of  that  Union,  to  the 
perpetuity  of  which  his  whole  life  had  been  devoted, 
and  to  the  perpetuity  of  which  he  looked  for  the  en- 
during memory  of  whatever  was  worthy  of  remem- 
brance in  American  history. 

In  an  extraordinary  degree  Clay  rose  above  the 
passions  of  the  hour,  as  did  Webster  and  certain 
other  statesmen  of  that  time, — though  certain  other 
statesmen  of  the  time  did  not. 

He  saw  the  situation  clearly.  The  Union  had  been 
formed  in  candid  recognition  of  the  fact  that  slavery 
existed  in  full  force  and  effect  in  certain  of  the  states, 
while  in  certain  other  states,  chiefly  by  reason  of  its 
unprofitableness,  it  was  slowly  passing  away  at  the 
time  of  the  Constitution's  framing.  He  perfectly 
understood  that  the  Constitution  was  a  compact  be- 
tween states  that  could  ratify  or  reject  it  at  will,  and 
that  but  for  concessions  made  on  the  one  side  and  on 
the  other,  the  Constitution  could  never  have  become 
the  fundamental  law  of  the  Republic.  He  clearly 
understood  that  the  dealings  of  the  Constitution  with 
this  question  of  slavery  constituted  a  compromise  to 
which  the  moral  sentiments  and  the  material  interests 
of  both  sides  were  parties. 

But  as  has  been  explained,  there  had  grown  up  at 
the  North  and  at  the  South  two  parties  of  extremists 
who  cared  little  or  nothing  for  the  Union  and  every- 
thing for  their  opposing  purposes:  the  Northern 
party  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  at  all  costs,  even 
at  cost  of  the  destruction  of  the  Union  itself:  and  the 


88  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

Southern  party  organized  for  the  perpetuation  and 
extension  of  slavery  regardless  of  everything  else, 
regardless  of  the  Union  and  of  all  that  it  signified 
of  human  liberty  and  of  the  practical  realization  of 
the  doctrine  of  self-government  among  men. 

Neither  party  represented  the  people  in  whose  be- 
half it  professed  to  speak.  The  abolitionists,  whose 
petition  for  the  dissolution  of  the  Union  we  shall 
hereafter  present,  certainly  did  not  represent  the 
thought  or  desire  of  the  great  majority  of  the  North- 
ern people.  In  the  same  way  the  Southern  dis- 
unionists  who  sought  the  disruption  of  the  Union  in 
order  that  slavery  might  "have  free  course  to  run  and 
be  glorified,"  did  not  represent  the  great  body  of 
Southern  citizens,  many  of  whom  deprecated  slavery 
and  longed  for  its  extinction  by  some  safe  process  of 
gradual  emancipation.  But  in  both  cases  the  extrem- 
ists were  accepted  on  the  opposing  side  as  representa- 
tives of  the  general  thought ;  the  extravagant  opinions 
and  demands  of  fanatical  persons  on  the  one  side  or 
the  other  were  interpreted  as  the  settled  convictions 
of  the  great  body  of  the  people  on  the  side  thus  mis- 
represented to  its  hurt. 

Among  the  extremists  on  both  sides  the  disruption 
of  the  Union  was  jauntily  contemplated  as  a  ready 
remedy  for  ills  complained  of. 

As  early  as  1844  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts 
had  resolved  "That  the  project  of  the  annexation  of 
Texas,  unless  arrested  on  the  threshold,  may  tend  to 
drive  these  states  into  a  dissolution  of  the  Union'' 
Again,  in  1845,  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts 
passed  and  the  governor  of  that  state  approved,  a 


The  Compromise  of  1850  89 

resolution  asserting  a  right  of  nullification  and  de- 
claring that  the  admission  of  Texas  as  a  state  in  the 
Union  "would  have  no  binding  force  whatever  on  the 
people  of  Massachusetts."  That  resolution  could 
mean  nothing  less  than  that  Massachusetts  would 
withdraw  from  the  Union  in  the  event  of  the  admis- 
sion of  Texas,  for  otherwise  laws  enacted  by  virtue 
of  the  vote  of  Texas  senators  must  have  "binding 
force"  upon  the  people  of  Massachusetts  as  upon 
those  of  all  the  other  states. 

There  were  other  resolutions  of  similar  purport 
adopted  by  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts  that  it 
is  not  necessary  to  set  forth  in  a  history  which  is  not 
an  indictment  but  merely  an  expository  setting  forth 
of  facts  by  way  of  accounting  for  events. 

On  both  sides  disunion  was  constantly  and  freely 
threatened  if  either  side  could  not  have  its  way.  A 
convention  of  Southerners  held  at  Nashville,  Ten- 
nessee, distinctly  recommended  the  secession  of  the 
South  and  called  for  a  Southern  congress  to  consider 
and  adopt  that  policy.  About  the  same  time  Mr. 
Hale  of  New  Hampshire  introduced  in  the  Senate 
(Feb.  1,  1850)  a  petition  deliberately  calling  upon 
the  national  legislative  body  to  adopt  measures  for 
the  dissolution  of  the  Union. 

The  petitioners  were  citizens  of  Pennsylvania  and 
Delaware,  but  they  constituted  only  a  small  fraction 
of  the  people  of  those  states  and  unquestionably  their 
proposal,  if  put  to  a  vote  in  Pennsylvania  and  Dela- 
ware, would  have  been  buried  under  a  mountainous 
majority  of  adverse  ballots.  Yet  the  petitioners  delib- 
erately assumed  to  be  and  to  speak  for  "the  inhabit- 


90  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

ants"  of  those  states,  and  their  petition  was  undoubt- 
edly accepted  at  the  South  as  representing  popular 
opinion  in  the  region  whence  it  came,  if  not  indeed  in 
the  entire  North.  It  was  the  mischief  of  such  things 
that,  while  they  were  the  work  of  a  fanatical  few,  they 
managed  to  pass  themselves  off  as  utterances  repre- 
sentative of  public  sentiment  in  the  quarter  from 
which  they  emanated. 

The  petition  was  as  follows: 

We,  the  undersigned,  inhabitants  of  Pennsylvania  and 
Delaware,  believing  that  the  Federal  Constitution,  in  pledg- 
ing the  strength  of  the  whole  nation  to  support  slavery, 
violates  the  Divine  Law,  makes  war  upon  human  rights,  and 
is  grossly  inconsistent  with  republican  principles;  that  its 
attempt  to  unite  freedom  and  slavery  in  our  body  politic  has 
brought  upon  the  country  great  and  manifold  evils,  and  has 
fully  proved  that  no  such  union  can  exist  but  by  the  sacrifice 
of  freedom  and  the  supremacy  of  slavery,  respectfully  ask 
you  to  devise  and  propose,  without  delay,  some  plan  for  the 
immediate,  peaceful  dissolution  of  the  American  Union. 

Daniel  Webster  fitly  exposed  the  character  and 
significance  of  this  petition  by  moving  that  it  be 
prefaced  with  a  preamble  as  follows: 

Whereas,  at  the  commencement  of  the  session,  you  and 
each  of  you  took  your  solemn  oaths,  in  the  presence  of  God 
and  on  the  Holy  Evangelists,  that  you  would  support  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States;  now,  therefore,  we  pray 
you  to  take  immediate  steps  to  break  up  the  Union,  and 
overthrow  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  as  soon  as 
you  can. 

So  repulsive  was  this  proposal  of  disunion  that 


The  Compromise  of  1850  91 

only  three  senators  voted  even  to  receive  the  petition 
embodying  it  and  in  the  House  a  like  refusal  was 
made.  But  those  three  senators  were  Mr.  Seward, 
of  New  York,  Mr.  Chase  of  Ohio,  and  Mr.  Hale  of 
New  Hampshire — three  great  leaders  of  Northern 
thought  who  were  destined  soon  to  become  three  men 
of  dominant  influence  in  the  new  party  of  Free-soil 
and  leaders  in  antagonism  to  the  Southern  claim  to  a 
share  in  the  new  territories. 

There  might  have  been  a  score  of  other  votes  for 
the  petition  which  would  have  had  far  less  significance. 
The  votes  of  these  three  senators  meant  clearly  that 
the  Free-soil  party  looked  upon  disunion  just  as  the 
extreme  pro-slavery  men  of  the  South  did,  as  a  legiti- 
mate and  always  available  remedy  for  existing  ills 
or  a  prophylactic  against  evils  anticipated. 

As  early  as  1847  Mr.  Calhoun  had  set  forth  the 
Southern  contention  with  regard  to  the  territories  in 
a  series  of  carefully  worded  resolutions  which  read 
as  follows: 

Resolved,  that  the  territories  of  the  United  States  belong 
to  the  several  States  composing  this  Union,  and  are  held  by 
them  as  their  joint  and  common  property. 

Resolved,  that  Congress,  as  the  joint  agent  and  repre- 
sentative of  the  States  of  this  Union,  has  no  right  to  make 
any  law,  or  do  any  act  whatever,  that  shall  directly,  or  by 
its  effects,  make  any  discrimination  between  the  States  of 
this  Union,  by  which  any  of  them  shall  be  deprived  of  its 
full  and  equal  right  in  any  territory  of  the  United  States, 
acquired  or  to  be  acquired. 

Resolved,  that  the  enactment  of  any  law  which  should, 
directly  or  by  its  effects,  deprive  the  citizens  of  any  of  the 


92  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

States  of  this  Union  from  emigrating,  with  their  property, 
into  any  of  the  territories  of  the  United  States,  would 
make  such  discrimination,  and  would,  therefore,  be  a  viola- 
tion of  the  Constitution  and  the  rights  of  the  States 
from  which  such  citizens  emigrated,  and  in  derogation 
of  that  perfect  equality  which  belongs  to  them  as  members 
of  this  Union,  and  would  tend  directly  to  subvert  the  Union 
itself. 

Resolved,  that  it  is  a  fundamental  principle  of  our  politi- 
cal creed,  that  a  people,  in  forming  a  Constitution,  have 
the  unconditional  right  to  form  and  adopt  the  government 
which  they  may  think  best  calculated  to  secure  their  liberty, 
prosperity,  and  happiness;  and  that,  in  conformity  thereto, 
no  other  condition  is  imposed  by  the  Federal  Constitution 
on  a  State,  in  order  to  be  admitted  into  this  Union,  except 
that  its  constitution  shall  be  republican;  and  that  the  im- 
position of  any  other  by  Congress  would  be  not  only  in 
violation  of  the  Constitution,  but  in  direct  conflict  with  the 
principle  on  which  our  political  system,  rests. 

Here  we  have  from  the  South  a  threat  of  disunion, 
a  trifle  more  disguised,  perhaps,  than  the  threats  that 
had  come  from  the  North,  but  not  less  positive.  The 
resolutions  were  intended  especially  to  cover  the  new 
territories  which  the  country  was  then  acquiring  from 
Mexico  by  conquest  and  treaty,  but  they  covered  with 
equal  effect  all  of  that  territory  which  had  been  added 
to  the  Union  by^  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  and  the 
greater  part  of  which  had  been  set  apart  by  the 
Missouri  Compromise  to  be  formed  into  free  states. 
They  were  a  challenge  to  the  Missouri  Compromise, 
and  the  assertion  of  a  doctrine  which  afterwards 
greatly  vexed  the  country  and  contributed  in  an  im- 
portant way  to  the  bringing  about  of  war.     They 


The  Compromise  of  1850  93 

constituted  a  plea  for  that  repeal  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise  which  was  to  come  a  very  few  years  later. 

This  was  the  condition  of  things  which  Congress 
had  to  confront  on  its  assembling  in  December,  1849. 
Disunion  was  everywhere  in  the  air  and  on  each  side 
there  was  a  party  openly  advocating  it  as  the  only 
remedy  for  existing  and  threatened  ills.  Both  in  the 
North  and  the  South  this  party  of  disunion  was  in  a 
hopeless  minority,  but  by  reason  of  its  ceaseless  and 
aggressive  activity  it  had  managed  to  make  itself 
seem  the  authorized  exponent  of  public  opinion  for 
each  side. 

The  questions  before  the  country  were  many,  but 
they  all  related,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  slavery. 
Should  California  be  admitted  to  the  Union  as  a  free 
state?  If  so  with  what  boundaries?  for  California 
then  included  Utah,  Nevada  and  adjacent  territory. 
Or  should  California,  limited  to  the  present  bounda- 
ries of  that  state,  be  divided  into  two  commonwealths, 
so  that  the  Southern  half  might  come  in  as  a  slave 
state  to  offset  the  Northern  half  in  the  Senate  and 
the  electoral  college?  Texas  had  already  been  ad- 
mitted as  a  slave  state,  but  its  boundaries  were  still 
vague  and  undefined.  It  claimed  jurisdiction  over 
all  that  we  now  know  as  New  Mexico  and  Arizona. 
Should  that  vast  region — the  sterility  of  which  was 
at  that  time  wholly  unappreciated — be  added  to  the 
domain  of  slavery,  or  should  it  be  set  apart  in  the 
hope  that  it  might  be  erected  presently  into  two  or 
three  or  possibly  half  a  dozen  free  states? 

There  were  also  two  complaints  of  arrogant 
aggression  from  the  opposing  sides.    At  the  North 


94  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

there  was  complaint  that  the  "slave  power,"  as  it  was 
called,  sought  and  threatened  to  make  itself  dominant 
and  supreme  in  the  Union  by  its  demands  for  the 
rendition  of  fugitive  slaves.  At  the  South  there 
was  complaint  that  the  homes  and  firesides  of  the 
Southern  people  were  menaced  with  servile  insur- 
rection by  the  activities  of  those  who  sought  to  breed 
discontent  among  the  negroes  and  spread  among 
them  sentiments  dangerous  to  public  peace  and  order. 
There  was  complaint  at  the  North  that  the  constitu- 
tional and  statutory  provisions  for  the  rendition  of 
fugitive  slaves  exacted  of  Northern  people  an  ob- 
ligation which  many  of  them  could  not  conscientiously 
fulfil,  making  them  unwilling  parties  to  a  system 
which  their  consciences  abhorred,  or,  if  they  refused 
obedience,  condemning  them  to  the  condition  of  law- 
breakers and  denouncing  them  as  criminals  because 
of  their  refusal  to  do  that  against  which  their  very 
souls  revolted.  On  the  other  hand  the  people  of  the 
South  complained  that  their  Northern  brethren,  or 
many  of  them,  not  only  assisted  runaway  slaves  to 
escape  but  deliberately  incited  them  to  that  course 
and  that  the  constitutional  compact  upon  that  subject 
was  not  enforced  by  any  adequate  statutory  law. 

On  both  sides  discontent  was  rampant  and  threat- 
ening. On  both  sides  dissatisfaction  had  begun  to 
look  to  the  dissolution  of  the  Republic  as  the  readiest 
remedy  available. 

There  were  statesmen  like  Senator  Benton  who 
laughed  to  scorn  the  idea  that  any  considerable  part 
of  the  people  could  ever  seriously  contemplate  an 
assault  upon  the  integrity  of  the  Federal  Union,  but 


The  Compromise  of  1850  95 

that  the  Union  was  truly  and  very  gravely  in  danger 
subsequent  events   conclusively  demonstrated. 

It  was  to  save  the  Union  from  disruption  at  the 
hands  of  Northern  or  Southern  fanatics — all  of  whom 
were  threatening  that  disaster — that  Clay  framed, 
Webster  supported,  Congress  adopted,  and  the  Presi- 
dent approved  the  compromise  measures  of  1850. 

Those  measures  covered  substantially  all  the  points 
in  controversy.     The  bills  were  five  in  number. 

The  first  provided  for  the  separation  of  New 
Mexico  from  Texas,  with  compensation  to  Texas, 
and  for  the  admission  of  that  territory  to  the  Union 
as  a  state  when  it  should  become  populous  enough, 
with  or  without  slavery  as  its  own  people  should  at 
such  time  determine. 

The  second  set  off  Utah  from  California  and  pro- 
vided in  a  precisely  similar  manner  for  its  ultimate 
admission  to  the  Union  as  a  state. 

Neither  of  these  two  measures  ever  resulted  in  any- 
thing practical.  Even  unto  this  day  New  Mexico 
has  remained  too  sparsely  populated  for  statehood 
and  Utah  was  not  admitted  to  the  Union  until  long 
after  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  had  been 
so  amended  as  to  prohibit  slavery  in  any  part  of  the 
Republic. 

The  third  of  Clay's  compromise  bills  provided  for 
the  admission  of  California  to  the  Union  as  a  state 
under  the  Constitution  which  it  had  adopted,  which 
made  no  provision  for  the  existence  of  slavery  within 
its  borders. 

The  fourth  of  the  bills  was  a  new  and  more  stren- 
uous fugitive  slave  law  than  any  that  had  ever  before 


96  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

existed.  It  was  intended  to  carry  out  the  provision 
of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  on  that  sub- 
ject and  it  was  supposed  to  be  offset  to  Northern 
sentiment  by  the  fifth  of  the  compromise  measures 
which  forbade  the  slave  trade  within  the  strictly 
national  domain  of  the  District  of  Columbia. 

It  had  long  been  a. grievance  to  Northern  minds 
that  this  peculiarly  national  territory,  governed  as 
it  was  exclusively  by  a  Congress  representative  of  all 
the  states  in  the  Senate  and  of  all  their  people  in  the 
House,  and  wholly  without  any  expression  of  the 
will  of  its  inhabitants,  was  made  a  slave  mart,  into 
which  the  slave-trader  from  Maryland  or  Virginia 
could  take  his  chattels  for  sale  on  the  auction  block 
to  other  slave-traders  who  were  there  to  buy  specula- 
tively that  they  might  sell  again  to  the  owners  of 
cotton  and  rice  fields  at  the  South. 

In  the  North  and  South  there  had  always  been  a 
radical  distinction  in  men's  minds  and  consciences, 
between  slavery  and  the  slave-trade;  between  the 
holding  of  men  in  hereditary  bondage  under  a  system 
essentially  patriarchal  and  kindly,  and  the  deliberate 
traffic  in  human  beings  for  purposes  of  speculative 
profit. 

There  were  two  distinct  questions  with  respect  to 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  To  have  abol- 
ished the  institution  there  root  and  branch,  as  multi- 
tudes of  petitioners  prayed,  would  have  been  to 
menace  the  two  states,  Virginia  and  Maryland,  which 
had  given  the  District  to  the  Union.^  It  would  have 
been  to  establish  within  their  borders  and  by  national 

*  Virginia's  portion  had  been  receded  to  that  State  in  1846. 


The  Compromise  of  1850  97 

authority  a  little  Canada  into  which  fugitive  slaves 
from  either  of  those  states  might  escape  with  the 
certainty  of  thereby  achieving  freedom;  for  in  the 
temper  of  that  time  no  fugitive  slave  law  could  by 
any  possibility  have  been  enforced  there  after  once 
Congress  had  decreed  the  abolition  of  slavery  within 
the  District. 

But  the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade  within  this 
peculiarly  national  domain  was  quite  another  matter. 
It  left  to  all  Southerners  summoned  thither  on  one 
or  other  sort  of  governmental  business,  or  removing 
thither  to  reside,  the  right  freely  to  bring  then  do- 
mestic servants  with  them  without  fear  of  molesta- 
tion; but  it  made  an  end  of  that  traffic  in  negroes  as 
mere  merchandise  which  was  even  more  offensive  to 
the  better  people  of  the  South  than  to  those  of  the 
North — ^which  was  socially  as  severely  frowned  upon 
in  the  one  part  of  the  country  as  in  the  other  and 
concern  with  which  made  the  slave-trader  as  com- 
pletely a  social  outcast  in  Virginia  as  it  might  have 
done  in  Massachusetts. 

Mr.  Clay's  five  bills  were  framed  and  introduced 
in  pursuit  of  his  dominant  purpose  to  preserve  the 
American  Union  at  whatever  sacrifice  of  principle 
or  of  interest,  and  in  like  spirit  they  were  enacted  by 
both  houses  of  Congress.  They  had  the  strong  sup- 
port of  Daniel  Webster  in  one  of  the  ablest  orations 
he  ever  delivered  in  behalf  of  the  Union;  a  speech 
made,  as  Webster's  biographers  contend,  in  full 
knowledge  of  the  fact  that  its  delivery  must  cost  him 
his  very  last  hope  of  election  to  the  presidency;  a 
speech  which  brought  upon  him  the  odious  accusation 

1-7 


98  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

of  having  "sold  out  to  the  slave  power."^  They  had 
the  support  also  of  men  on  both  sides  of  the  danger 
line  of  cleavage  who  strongly  disapproved  of  some 
of  them  but  who  voted  for  all  in  the  firm  conviction 
that  together  they  constituted  a  compromise  necessary 
to  the  preservation  of  the  Union. 

That  object  was  still  supreme  in  the  minds  of  the 
great  majority,  North  and  South  alike.  It  was  felt 
on  both  sides — in  spite  of  personal  convictions,  per- 
sonal interests,  and  the  irritating  friction  of  political 
agitation — that  after  all,  the  cause  of  human  liberty, 
human  progress,  and  the  system  of  self-government 
among  men  was  dependent  upon  the  perpetuity  of 
the  union  of  these  states.  It  was  felt  that  the  enslave- 
ment of  the  negro,  now  that  the  Constitution,  the 
statute  law,  and  the  public  sentiment  of  the  country 
had  robbed  it  of  its  most  repugnant  feature — the 
African  slave-trade — was  a  matter  of  minor  conse- 
quence in  comparison  with  the  perpetuity  of  the  only 
government  on  God's  earth  which  had  ever  rested  its 
right  to  be  upon  the  twin  theories  of  unalienable 
rights  and  the  consent  of  the  governed. 

To  the  two  disunion  parties,  the  one  aggressively 
active  at  the  North  in  behalf  of  abolition  and  the 
other  equally  aggressive  at  the  South  in  behalf  of 
slavery,  these  compromise  measures  were  intensely 
offensive.  But  to  the  great  majority  of  the  Amer- 
ican people  their  passage  seemed  imperatively  neces- 
sary to  the  preservation  of  the  Republic,  and  this 

'  Unhappily  for  his  reputation  Mr.  Webster  gave  color  to  this  charge  by 
accepting  a  large  sum  of  money  from  Mr.  Corcoran  as  a  scarcely  dis- 
guised reward  for  the  speech. 


The  Compromise  of  1850  99 

sentiment  found  expression  in  the  action  of  both 
houses  of  Congress  upon  them. 

All  of  them  were  enacted  by  decisive  majorities 
and  all  by  the  votes  of  statesmen  from  North  and 
South,  acting  together  and  putting  aside  their  sec- 
tional prejudices  in  behalf  of  the  Union. 

The  bill  for  the  admission  of  California  as  a  free 
state,  against  which  the  strongest  opposition  was 
made  from  the  South,  had  thirty- four  senators  in  its 
favor  against  only  eighteen  in  opposition,  four  of 
the  votes  in  behalf  of  it  being  cast  by  the  four  great 
Southern  leaders,  Bell  of  Tennessee,  Houston  of 
Texas,  Benton  of  Missouri,  and  Underwood  of  Ken- 
tucky— a  list  to  which  Mr.  Clay,  as  the  author  and 
sponsor  of  the  bill  must  be  added  as  a  king  of  men. 
In  the  House, — ^more  directly  representative  of  pop- 
ular sentiment — the  vote  in  favor  of  the  bill  was  no 
less  than  one  hundred  and  fifty,  with  only  fifty-six 
against  it.  This  was  the  bill  most  offensive  to  the 
South  and  so  the  vote  upon  it  reflected  the  strength  of 
the  Southern  desire  for  the  perpetuity  of  the  Union. 

On  the  other  hand  the  Northern  desire  for  the  ac- 
complishment of  that  end  was  reflected  in  the  vote 
upon  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  which  constituted  a 
part  of  Clay's  compromise  scheme, — a  part  of  it  in- 
tended to  offset  to  the  South  the  admission  of  the 
whole  of  the  present  state  of  California  as  a  free 
state. 

This  Fugitive  Slave  Act  was  passed  by  a  vote  of 
twenty-seven  to  twelve  in  the  Senate,  and  by  a  vote 
of  one  hundred  nine  to  seventy-six  in  the  House. 
Three  Northern  senators  voted  for  it  and  one  other. 


100  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

Mr.  Dickinson  of  New  York — ^who  wished  to  vote 
for  it,  was  paired  with  his  colleague  Mr.  Seward.  In 
the  House  thirty-two  members  from  Northern  states 
voted  in  favor  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law. 

But  the  discussion  of  these  compromise  measures 
lasted  for  eight  months,  and  it  was  by  no  means  con- 
fined to  the  halls  of  Congress.  There  was  the  fourth 
estate — ^the  newspaper  press — to  be  reckoned  with, 
and  behind  that  were  the  people.  The  people  them- 
selves and  the  newspaper  representatives  of  popular 
opinion  took  a  free  part  in  the  discussion,  and  both 
were  unrestrained  by  parliamentary  etiquette  or  by 
any  of  those  considerations  of  polity  and  statecraft 
to  which  members  of  either  house  of  Congress  made 
obeisance.  There  was  a  great  devotion  to  the  Union 
it  is  true  among  press  and  people,  but  it  did  not  take 
statesmanlike  form  or  consider  those  nice  questions 
that  statesmen  were  bound  to  take  into  account. 

On  either  side  the  popular  desire  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  Union  was  complicated  with  the  conviction 
that  only  the  iniquities  and  injustices  of  the  other 
side  imperiled  the  Republic.  On  each  side  there  was 
a  profound  conviction  that  if  the  other  side  would 
behave  itself  as  it  should,  there  would  be  no  shadow 
of  danger  to  the  Union.  Again  on  either  side  there 
was  an  intemperate  press,  representing  an  utterly 
intolerant  party  of  extremists,  and,  shut  their  eyes 
as  they  might  to  facts,  the  statesmen  of  that  time 
were  aware  that  these  extremists  on  the  one  side  and 
upon  the  other,  were  daily  adding  to  their  numbers 
and  daily  becoming  more  and  more  nearly  repre- 
sentative of  popular  sentiment. 


The  Compromise  of  1850  101 

The  matter  was  complicated  with  partisanship,  also, 
and  with  personal  ambitions.  There  was  the  ques- 
tion of  supremacy  in  the  Nation,  between  the  Whigs, 
who  were  then  in  power  by  virtue  of  Taylor's  election 
in  1848,  and  the  Democrats  who,  with  one  other  brief 
interval,  had  been  dominant  in  national  affairs  dur- 
ing the  entire  preceding  half  century.  At  the  South 
the  two  parties,  laying  aside  the  questions  of  polity 
that  had  previously  separated  them,  vied  with  each 
other  in  such  support  of  slavery  as  should  win  the 
good  will  of  the  extreme  pro-slavery  party.  At  the 
North  they  were  rivals  as  suitors  for  the  favor  of  the 
new  Free-soil  faction — for  at  that  time  it  was  only  a 
faction  which  Know-Nothingism  was  destined  pres- 
ently to  relegate  temporarily  to  the  background. 

But  at  the  North  the  new  Free-soil  party  drew 
more  heavily  on  the  Whigs  than  on  the  Democrats 
for  its  support,  although  its  early  leaders  and  presi- 
dential candidates,  John  P.  Hale  and  Martin  Van 
Buren,  were  distinguished  Democratic  statesmen. 

Accordingly  there  arose  in  the  country  a  contest 
between  the  two  old  parties  for  the  favor  of  the  two 
new  ones.  It  became  in  fact  a  scrambling  auction, 
in  which  each  party  in  each  section  and  each  state  and 
each  district  bid  its  convictions  and  its  principles, 
without  scruple,  for  votes.  Each  party  sought  to  be 
more  intensely  pro-slavery  than  the  other  in  those 
states  and  districts  in  which  the  pro-slavery  sentiment 
was  strong,  while  in  those  states  and  districts  in  which 
the  anti-slavery  sentiment  was  manifestly  dominant, 
each  party  rivaled  the  other  in  its  courtship  of  the 
prevailing  dogma  and  its  representative  voters. 


102  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

Quite  naturally,  men  ambitious  of  political  prefer- 
ment trimmed  their  sails  to  catch  these  varying  winds, 
and  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  country 
political  conviction  and  principle  very  generally  gave 
way  to  questions  of  self-interest.  If  the  politician  of 
that  time  was  not  quite  "all  things  to  all  men,"  he  was 
at  any  rate  all  things  to  the  men  who  could  cast  the 
larger  number  of  votes  for  his  elevation  to  office. 

The  accusation  of  such  selfish  sacrifice  of  principle 
and  conviction  for  the  sake  of  personal  aggrandize- 
ment was  openly  made  against  the  foremost  states- 
men of  the  time,  including  Clay  and  Webster,  and 
the  President  himself.  Whatever  any  one  of  these 
did  that  was  displeasing  to  one  part  of  the  country, 
was  freely  attributed  to  a  desire  to  "curry  favor," 
as  the  phrase  went,  with  "the  slave  power"  in  the 
one  case,  or  with  "the  aboUtionist  sentiment,"  in  the 
other. 

Without  questioning  the  motives  of  the  greater 
men,  who  offered  their  dominant  devotion  to  the 
Union  as  the  only  and  amply  sufficient  explanation  of 
their  actions  and  their  votes,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the 
attitude  and  course  and  eloquence  of  a  multitude  of 
minor  men  possessed  of  ambition  for  political  prefer- 
ment were  determined,  on  the  one  side  or  the  other, 
chiefly  by  a  consideration  of  votes. 

Mr.  Clay,  Mr.  Webster  and  the  statesmen  who 
aided  them  in  adopting  the  Compromise  of  1850, 
confidently  believed  that  by  their  action  in  that  matter 
they  had  laid  the  slavery  question  to  rest  for  at  least 
a  generation  to  come.  They  had  in  fact,  as  the  event 
proved,  succeeded  only  in  opening  it  anew  and  adding 


The  Compromise  of  1850  103 

virulence  to  its  discussion.  Their  very  debates,  pre- 
paratory to  the  passage  of  the  compromise  bills,  had 
stirred  the  country  to  a  discussion  of  the  question, 
angrier  than  any  other  that  had  been  known  since  the 
Constitution  was  framed.  The  measures  themselves, 
so  far  from  allaying  excitement  and  controversy,  in- 
tensified both.  The  South  felt  that  it  had  been 
cheated  in  a  bargain  which  gave  one  free  state  cer- 
tainly and  two,  three  or  four  prospectively,  to  the 
North,  with  absolutely  no  certainty  and  little  prob- 
ability of  the  admission  of  any  slave  state  in  com- 
pensation— for  from  the  first  the  people  of  Texas 
resented  and  resisted  the  proposal  to  divide  their 
great  domain  into  the  four  states  provided  for  at  the 
beginning.  On  the  other  hand  the  Northern  States 
felt  that  the  new  Fugitive  Slave  Law  was  an  enact- 
ment with  which  they  could  not  comply  without  such 
a  sacrifice  of  conscience  and  conviction  as  could  in  no 
wise  be  made  by  honest  and  sincere  men. 

From  the  very  first  many  of  the  Northern  States 
set  their  legislative  machinery  at  work  to  defeat  the 
operation  of  this  Fugitive  Slave  Law  by  the  most 
eff'ective  counter  legislation  that  legal  ingenuity 
could  devise.  In  so  far  as  these  devices  succeeded  in 
preventing  the  execution  of  that  law  they  in  effect 
nullified  a  national  statute  which  the  National  Gov- 
ernment was  entirely  competent  to  enact. 

More  important  still  from  the  point  of  view  of 
history,  is  the  fact  that  the  compromise  which  was 
intended  to  allay  all  sectional  feeling  and  work  a 
pacification  in  behalf  of  the  Union,  directly  and  im- 
mediately wrought  an  opposite  result.    It  additionally 


104  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

inflamed  passion  in  all  parts  of  the  country.  It 
strongly  accentuated  those  differences  of  opinion 
which  alone  threatened  the  Union  with  dissolution 
and  the  country  with  devastating  war. 

The  North  set  itself  to  nullify  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Law.  The  South  set  itself  to  undo  the  Missouri 
Compromise. 

On  the  one  hand  it  was  contended  that  the  Fugitive 
Slave  Law  made  slavery  a  national  instead  of  a 
state  institution — a  thing  to  which  Northern  senti- 
ment and  Northern  conscience  could  in  no  wise 
consent.  On  the  other  hand  it  was  stoutly  insisted 
that  the  equality  of  the  states  under  the  Constitution 
was  openly  violated,  not  only  by  the  personal  liberty 
laws  enacted  by  Northern  States  in  order  to  nullify 
the  national  statute  on  the  subject  of  fugitive  slaves, 
but  still  more  aggressively  by  the  practical  exclusion 
of  slaveholders  from  the  territories,  so  far  at  least  as 
their  slave  property  was  concerned;  and  further  by 
the  decree  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  that,  whatever 
the  will  of  the  settlers  in  new  regions  might  be,  there 
should  be  no  new  slave  states  carved  out  of  that  por- 
tion of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  which  lay  north  of  the 
southern  line  of  Missouri.  This  prohibition — ^taken 
in  connection  with  the  admission  of  California  as  a 
free  state — amounted  in  effect  to  a  provision  that 
there  should  be  no  more  slave  states  created  anywhere ; 
for,  as  Mr.  Webster  had  clearly  pointed  out,  there 
was  no  other  part  of  the  territory  conquered  or  pur- 
chased from  Mexico,  into  which  slavery  could  be  prac- 
tically or  profitably  extended. 

The  attempts  made  to  enforce  the  Fugitive  Slave 


TChe  Compromise  of  1850  105 

Law  at  the  North,  whether  successful  or  baffled, 
served  only  to  inflame  passion  on  both  sides  and  to 
intensify  the  very  controversy  which  it  had  been  the 
purpose  of  the  act — as  a  part  of  a  compromise — ^to 
allay.  On  the  other  hand  the  Southern  conviction 
grew  that  by  the  two  compromises  the  South  had 
been  cheated  of  its  equal  rights  in  the  public  domain, 
and  out  of  that  contention  was  destined  almost  im- 
mediately to  grow  a  bloody  war  in  Kansas  and  a  still 
more  acrimonious  state  of  feeling  between  the  North 
and  the  South. 

The  story  of  that  matter  is  reserved  for  another 
chapter  of  this  history.  In  the  meanwhile,  if  the  facts 
have  been  adequately  set  forth,  it  must  be  clear  to  the 
reader  that  the  Compromise  of  1850  not  only  failed 
of  its  purpose  of  pacification,  but  resulted  imme- 
diately in  the  very  marked  increase  of  hostility  be- 
tween the  sections,  the  intensifying  of  the  irritation 
and  the  accentuation  of  the  acrimony  that  pervaded 
and  inspired  the  dispute. 

The  fundamental  trouble  was  that  the  statesmen 
who  fondly  thought  to  settle  the  matter  by  a  com- 
promise, did  not  grasp  the  truth  of  the  situation 
with  which  they  were  called  upon  to  deal.  They 
did  not  appreciate  the  fact  that  there  was  indeed  an 
"irrepressible  conflict,"  between  the  two  systems,  a 
conflict  which  no  compromise  could  end,  no  arrange- 
ment could  mollify,  no  agreement  could  by  any  pos- 
sibility adjust. 

War  was  already  on  between  abolitionism  and 
slavery.  It  was  idle  to  seek  for  grounds  of  recon- 
ciliation between  convictions  so  utterly  antagonistic 


106  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

and  so  necessarily  irreconcilable.  The  compromisers 
were  men  crying  "Peace"  where  there  was  no  peace 
and  no  possibility  of  peace.  They  were  visionaries 
seeking  to  reconcile  sentiments  that  were  as  opposite 
as  the  poles.  In  opinion  and  sentiment  as  well  as  in 
physics,  there  are  affinities  that  may  not  be  resisted 
and  antagonisms  that  no  power  can  overcome.  There 
was  no  flux  of  political  agreement  that  could  fuse 
Northern  and  Southern  sentiment  on  the  subject  of 
slavery  into  one  homogeneous  whole — no  vehiculum 
in  which  the  two  antagonistic  principles  could  mingle 
in  harmony. 

The  key  to  the  situation,  as  every  sincere  historian 
must  recognize,  if  he  would  interpret  the  events  of 
that  time  aright,  was  the  fact  that  this  conflict  was 
indeed  "irrepressible,"  and  that  it  could  end  only  with 
the  extinction  of  slavery  on  the  one  hand,  or  with  the 
universal  and  constitutional  recognition  of  slavery 
as  a  national  institution  on  the  other. 

The  Compromise  of  1850  was  futile  and  a  failure 
because  it  was  founded  upon  the  ignoring  of  this 
fundamental  truth. 


CHAPTER  VI 

Uncle  Tom's  Cabin 

The  failure  of  the  Compromise  of  1850  to  aceom- 
pMsh  its  purpose  did  not  at  first  appear  in  the 
national  election  returns.  In  fact  the  new  Free-soil 
party  polled  fewer  votes  in  1852  than  it  had  cast  four 
years  before,  but  in  the  elections  of  the  several  states 
of  the  North  it  was  steadily  gaining  ground  precisely 
as  in  the  South  the  extreme  disunion  pro-slavery 
party  was  likewise  doing. 

Little  by  little  the  more  conservative  men  on  either 
side  were  being  drawn  into  the  radical  propaganda. 

In  1852  there  appeared  in  print  a  novel  which  was 
destined  to  affect  the  history  of  the  Union  as  no  other 
novel  ever  did  before  or  since.  Every  historian  of 
that  epoch  must  reckon  with  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin" 
as  one  of  the  vital  forces  affecting  the  history  of  the 
time. 

The  novel  was  written  by  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe,  who  personally  knew  very  little  about  slavery 
except  by  hearsay.  Of  necessity  it  abounded  in  in- 
consistencies, mistakes  of  facts,  and  impossibilities 
so  far  as  its  social  depictions  were  concerned.  All 
these  things  have  been  pointed  out  by  criticism  and 
need  not  now  be  recapitulated,  the  more  because  they 
have  no  historical  importance  whatever.  But  the 
novel  made  a  tremendous  appeal  to  the  sentiment  of 

107 


108  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

humanity  in  antagonism  to  slavery.  It  argued  no 
question,  it  offered  no  statistics,  it  presented  no  thesis. 
It  simply  appealed  to  the  sentiments  of  men,  and 
women,  and  children,  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  and 
its  influence  was  inmiediate  and  well-nigh  limitless. 

As  there  are  no  fixed  canons  of  criticism  by  which 
to  determine  the  artistic  merit  or  the  dramatic  value 
of  any  work  of  the  imagination  it  is  of  course  open 
to  those  who  choose  to  contend,  as  many  have  done, 
that  Mrs.  Stowe's  work  was  not  at  all  great  as  a 
creation  in  fiction  but  that  its  immediate  and  stu- 
pendous success  and  influence  were  due  solely  to  the 
adventitious  circumstances  of  its  publication.  But 
those  adventitious  circumstances  did  not  exist  in  the 
remote  European  countries  into  whose  languages  the 
novel  was  presently  translated  and  among  whose 
people  it  continues  to  be  a  classic  to  this  day.  These 
people  knew  nothing  whatever  of  American  slavery 
and  cared  little  if  at  all  about  it.  They  were  in  no 
degree  influenced  in  their  judgment  of  Mrs.  Stowe's 
romance  by  any  of  the  considerations  that  vexed  the 
politics  of  this  Republic.  They  read  the  novel  be- 
cause of  its  intrinsic  and  intensely  human  interest  and 
because  of  nothing  else  whatever. 

The  better  judgment  would  seem  to  be  that  "Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin"  was  a  work  of  extraordinary  dramatic 
power  and  phenomenal  fitness  to  appeal  to  the  sym- 
pathies of  men.  It  had  for  its  subject  one  of  the  most 
picturesque  states  of  society  that  has  ever  been  known 
among  men  and  one  so  unusual  among  modern  na- 
tions that  its  very  rarity  added  to  its  charm  as  a  theme 
for  the  romance  writer. 


Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  109 

There  is  another  important  fact  which  must  be 
taken  into  consideration  in  estimating  the  influence 
of  that  work  of  fiction.  At  that  time  all  the  churches 
frowned  upon  novel-reading  as  a  sin.  A  few  of  T. 
S.  Arthur's  temperance  tales  were  cautiously  per- 
mitted to  the  elect,  but  as  a  rule  the  reading  of  novels 
was  rigidly  forbidden  to  those  who  constituted  the 
congregations  of  the  churches.  Even  Dickens,  who 
was  then  in  the  midst  of  his  extraordinary  popularity, 
was  read  only  secretly  and  with  shamefacedness  by 
those  who  submitted  themselves  to  the  instruction  of 
the  clergy.  The  Methodists  in  particular — and 
Methodism  was,  as  it  still  is,  a  very  great  power  in 
the  land — frowned  upon  all  works  of  fiction  as  the 
devil's  agencies  for  the  perversion  of  the  human  mind 
and  the  destruction  of  the  human  soul.  Novel-read- 
ing was  classed  by  all  the  pulpits  of  the  time  with 
such  sins  as  Sabbath-breaking,  whiskey-drinking, 
dancing,  and  other  devices  of  Satan.  The  great 
majority  of  men  and  women  of  that  generation  were 
effectually  forbidden  to  read  even  the  great  master- 
pieces of  their  mother  tongue,  from  Shakespeare  on- 
ward. But  here  in  Mrs.  Stowe's  work  was  a  novel 
approved  of  all  the  clergy,  a  novel  which  anybody 
might  virtuously  read,  and  a  generation  hungry  for 
creative  literature  of  a  date  later  than  the  "Pilgrim's 
Progress"  eagerly  welcomed  the  opportunity  to  read 
a  novel,  full  of  flesh-and-blood  interest,  that  appealed 
strongly  to  the  kindlier  and  better  sentiments  of 
human  nature.  The  preachers  read  the  book  and 
recommended  it  to  their  parishioners  and  as  a  conse- 
quence everybody  read  it — men,  women  and  children. 


110         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

Very  naturally  this  universal  reading  of  such  a 
romance  greatly  inflamed  the  sentiment  of  antagon- 
ism to  slavery  and  incidentally  aroused  something  like 
hatred  of  the  slaveholder  though  Mrs.  Stowe  had 
probably  not  intended  that  to  be  the  effect  of  her 
written  words. 

There  were  a  dozen  or  a  score  of  more  or  less  inane 
novels  put  forward  in  answer  to  "Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin"  but  their  only  effect  was  to  intensify  the  in- 
terest in  that  work. 

Coming  as  it  did  upon  the  heels  of  the  new  and 
peculiarly  offensive  Fugitive  Slave  Law  Mrs.  Stowe's 
romance  converted  pretty  nearly  all  the  people  of 
the  North  to  the  anti-slavery  cause  and  hastened  the 
growth  of  the  anti-slavery  party  into  formidable  pro- 
portions. It  awakened  sentiment,  and  sentiment  is 
always  an  immeasurably  more  potent  factor  in  human 
affairs  than  mere  intellectual  conviction  is.  It  en- 
listed in  the  anti-slavery  cause  every  gentle  and  every 
rampant  impulse  of  the  people  of  the  North.  It 
rubbed  out  of  multitudes  of  men's  minds  every 
consideration  of  constitutional  restriction,  every 
thought  of  states'  rights,  every  dogma  of  the  law  and 
every  decree  of  the  courts.  It  quickly  bred  a  new 
crusade  against  slavery.  It  everywhere  stimulated 
the  thought  that  slavery  was  a  wrong  for  which  the 
whole  Nation  was  responsible  and  the  extermination 
of  which,  at  all  costs,  the  Union  was  bound  to  accom- 
plish as  its  first  and  highest  duty.  In  brief,  this  novel 
bred  a  spirit  of  abolitionism  such  as  the  country  had 
never  before  known. 

The  time  had  not  yet  come  when  any  political 


Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  111 

party  could  plant  itself,  with  the  smallest  hope  of 
success,  upon  a  platform  of  openly  avowed  aboli- 
tionism. Those  who  were  ready  to  advocate  an  ag- 
gressive political  warfare  upon  the  system  of  slavery 
where  it  legally  existed  and  to  insist  upon  its  abolition 
by  force  of  Federal  enactment  in  contravention 
of  the  Constitution  were  still  in  a  hopeless  minority. 
They  were  opportunists  in  pohtics,  however,  and  they 
saw  and  seized  their  opportunity.  If  they  could  not 
gain  all  that  they  desired  they  were  ready  to  accept 
whatever  might  be  accomplished  in  the  direction  of 
the  end  they  sought.  The  Free-soil  party  presented 
itself  to  their  minds  as  an  easily  available  instrumen- 
tality. It  is  true  that  that  party  had  expressly  and 
with  extreme  circumspection  disclaimed  all  purpose 
and  all  constitutional  right  to  interfere  with  slavery 
in  the  states  in  which  it  legally  existed.  But  the 
avowed  antagonism  of  the  party  to  the  system  of 
slavery  rendered  it  a  conveniently  available  agency 
for  the  execution  of  the  will  of  those  who  desired  that 
slavery  should  cease  to  be  at  all  costs.  All  the  abo- 
litionists joined  the  party  at  once,  in  spite  of  its 
voluntary  and  to  them  offensive  limitation  of  its  activ- 
ity to  the  purpose  of  preventing  the  extension  of  the 
slave  system  into  new  territories.  On  the  other  hand 
men  by  scores  and  hundreds  of  thousands  through- 
out the  North  who  would  have  bitterly  resented  the 
still  opprobrious  epithet  of  "abolitionists"  eagerly 
joined  the  new  party  in  the  undefined  but  warmly 
cherished  hope  that  it  might  somehow  find  means  of 
ridding  the  Republic  of  the  curse  and  the  scandal 
of  slavery. 


CHAPTER  VII 

The  Repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise^  The 

Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  and  Squatter 

Sovereignty. 

The  Missouri  Compromise  was  in  effect  repealed 
by  the  compromise  measures  of  1850  but  there  was  as 
yet  no  formal  repeal.  The  effect  of  the  compromise 
measures  of  1850  was  presently  to  stir  up  a  greater 
strife  than  ever  on  the  subject  of  slavery  and  even  to 
raise  new  questions  with  regard  to  it.  The  ultra 
Southern  men  began  to  see  that  the  Compromise  of 
1850  had  given  them  practically  nothing  whatever  in 
the  way  of  territory  out  of  which  to  create  future 
slave  states. 

It  had  admitted  California  as  a  free  state.  It  had 
opened  Utah,  which  lay  mostly  to  the  north  of  the 
dead  line,  to  the  possible  introduction  of  slavery  if  its 
future  settlers  should  so  decree  upon  coming  into 
the  Union,  as  no  sane  man  in  any  quarter  of  the 
country  imagined  that  they  ever  would.  It  had  also 
separated  New  Mexico  which  lay  mostly  south  of 
the  dead  line,  from  the  slave  state  of  Texas  with  a 
like  license  to  its  future  settlers  if  there  should  ever 
be  any  such,  to  choose  for  themselves  whether  or  not 
they  would  permit  slavery  in  their  domain. 

Neither  of  these  territories  promised,  at  that  time, 
to  become  a  state  within  the  life  of  the  generation 

112 


Repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise       113 

then  in  being,  and  in  point  of  fact  neither  did.  Utah 
was  not  admitted  to  the  Union  until  1896,  long  after 
the  utter  abohtion  of  slavery  had  been  accomplished 
by  constitutional  amendment,  and  New  Mexico,  at 
the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century  is  still  a  terri- 
tory of  vast  area  and  very  small  population. 

The  passage  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  was  in 
fact  the  only  return  the  Compromise  of  1850  had 
made  to  the  South  for  what  the  South  regarded  as  a 
practical  surrender  of  territory  that  might  otherwise 
have  been  molded  into  slave  states.  At  the  North 
this  compensatory  enactment  was  everywhere  re- 
garded as  an  excessive  return  for  such  concessions  as 
had  been  made.  The  great  body  of  the  Northern 
people  would  not  and  could  not  lend  themselves  to 
the  execution  of  a  law  which  offended  their  con- 
sciences as  no  other  law  had  ever  done.  They  could 
not  make  themselves,  as  that  law  required  them  to  do, 
participants  in  a  system  which  they  held  to  be  utterly 
wrong  and  iniquitous. 

Thus  the  South  felt  itself  wronged  and  cheated  in 
the  compromise  and  the  North  felt  that  its  conscience 
had  been  outraged  and  its  integrity  of  mind  assailed. 

It  was  altogether  inevitable  that  the  calmer  con- 
sideration and  the  discussion  of  this  matter  should 
bring  up  new  questions  and  create  new  situations. 
The  Missouri  Compromise  had  not  yet  been  formally 
repealed.  That  Compromise  forbade  the  creation  of 
slave  states  out  of  any  part  of  the  Louisiana  territory 
lying  north  of  the  southern  line  of  Missouri,  and 
by  implication  it  forbade  the  carrying  of  slaves  into 
any  such  territory  prior  to  its  admission  as  a  state. 

1-8 


114  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

Under  the  Compromise  Missouri  and  Arkansas  had 
been  admitted  to  the  Union  as  slave  states  and  for 
thirty  years  the  Compromise  had  stood  as  a  bulwark 
against  disunion. 

But  now  there  appeared  a  tendency  on  the  part  of 
the  territories  lying  north  of  the  Missouri  Compro- 
mise line  to  become  populous.  Emigration  seemed  to 
be  setting  in  that  direction  and  the  fertility  of  the 
region  promised  presently  to  tempt  great  multitudes 
of  men  to  settle  there.  That  part  of  the  territory 
which  now  constitutes  Kansas  was  especially  tempt- 
ing to  emigration.  The  eastern  half  of  Kansas  was  a 
part  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase.  Its  western  half 
was  a  part  of  the  region  acquired  from  Mexico.  The 
eastern  half  of  it,  therefore,  was  subject  to  the  Mis- 
souri Compromise's  prohibition  of  slavery  while  the 
western  half  by  virtue  of  the  compromise  measures 
of  1850  was  free  from  that  restriction. 

Out  of  all  the  conditions  here  briefly  noted  there 
arose  at  the  South  a  clamor  for  the  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise.  Men  argued  that  as  it  was 
only  a  statute  repealable  at  any  session  of  Congress, 
and  as,  in  their  contention,  it  robbed  and  wronged  the 
slave-holding  half  of  the  Union,  it  ought  to  be  re- 
pealed. At  the  North  it  was  felt  that  repeal  would 
in  effect  make  of  slavery  a  national  institution,  and 
rob  the  anti-slavery  sentiment  of  the  benefit  it  had 
secured  by  consenting  to  the  admission  of  Missouri 
and  Arkansas  as  slave  states. 

There  was  a  very  strong  man  in  the  Senate  at  that 
time,  Stephen  A.  Douglas  of  Illinois.  He  was  a  born 
leader  of  men,  a  man  of  great  abihty  and  courage. 


Repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise       115 

and  he  had  ambition  to  become  president  of  the 
United  States.  He  was  a  master  of  statecraft  and 
an  opportunist  in  politics.  He  had  sought  some  years 
before  to  settle  the  question  with  regard  to  the  new 
territories  once  for  all  by  enacting  a  law  to  extend 
the  Missouri  Compromise  line  to  the  Pacific,  thus  ex- 
cluding slavery  north  of  that  line  from  all  the  new 
as  well  as  from  all  the  older  possessions  of  the 
Republic  and  by  implication  permitting  it  south  of 
that  line. 

As  his  proposal  was  rejected  it  is  not  worth  while 
now  to  speculate  upon  what  effect  its  acceptance 
might  have  had.  In  lieu  of  it  the  compromise  mea- 
sures of  1850  were  enacted.  Their  effect  was  almost 
immediately  to  increase  and  intensify  an  inflammation 
of  the  popular  mind  which  it  is  difficult  in  our  time 
even  to  conceive.  Senator  Douglas  voted  for  these 
measures  and  advocated  them  strongly  in  the  Senate. 
When  he  returned  to  his  own  state  at  the  end  of  the 
session  he  found  himself  anv  object  of  public  hatred 
and  condemnation.  The  City  Council  of  Chicago 
greeted  his  coming  with  a  set  of  resolutions  in  de- 
nunciation of  him.  The  resolutions  declared  him  to 
be  a  traitor  and  pronounced  the  compromise  measures 
a  violation  of  the  law  of  God.  The  City  Council 
instructed  the  police,  and  advised  all  citizens  to  dis- 
regard the  new  laws.  A  mass  meeting  was  called 
and  by  resolution  it  declared  it  to  be  the  duty  of  all 
good  citizens  "to  defy  death,  the  dungeon  and  the 
grave"  in  resisting  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  but  so 
uncertain  was  the  popular  mind,  even  in  its  fury,  that 
Douglas  promptly  challenged  it  and  met  it  in  a  great 


116  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

mass  meeting  before  which  he  delivered  an  im- 
passioned speech  explaining  his  views.  By  this  single 
speech  he  secured  an  immediate  and  well-nigh  unani- 
mous rescinding  of  the  resolutions  of  censure  and  a 
Httle  later  he  was  again  elected  to  represent  the  state 
in  the  Senate. 

Three  years  later,  in  1853,  on  his  return  from 
Washington  to  Illinois  and  after  he  had  made  him- 
self sponsor  for  that  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  of  which 
an  account  will  presently  be  given,  he  picturesquely 
said  that  he  had  traveled  all  the  way  from  Washing- 
ton to  Chicago  "by  the  light  of  his  own  burning 
effigies."  Nevertheless  when  his  term  expired  a  few 
years  later  he  was  again  elected  to  the  Senate  after  a 
conspicuous  canvass  of  the  state  in  which  his  reelec- 
tion was  practically  the  only  question  at  issue  and  in 
which  Abraham  Lincoln  was  his  opponent  on  the 

stump. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  Northern  sentiment 
on  the  questions  then  dividing  the  country  was  uni- 
form. It  was  on  the  contrary  as  sharply  divided  as 
ever,  with  a  distinct  preponderance  of  it  in  favor  of 
letting  the  slavery  question  rest,  so  far  as  legislation 
was  concerned,  where  it  had  been  placed  by  the 
compromise  measures  of  1850.  But  the  sentiment 
in  antagonism  to  slavery  was  everywhere  growing 
even  among  those  who  deprecated  the  agitation  of 
the  subject. 

The  extreme  opponents  of  slavery  had  taken  more 
advanced  ground  than  ever  before.  They  denounced 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  as  a  statute  which  Congress 
had  no  right  to  enact  and  which  no  citizen  should  obey. 


Repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise       117 

They  pointed  out  that  it  was  in  violation  of  that  very 
doctrine  of  state  sovereignty  to  which  the  advocates 
of  slavery  had  appealed.  The  ultra  ones  among  them 
planted  themselves  upon  the  doctrine  first  enunciated 
by  Mr.  Seward  of  New  York,  that  there  is  a  "higher 
law"  than  the  statutes  or  the  Constitution,  and  that 
men  of  enlightened  consciences  were  bound  to  obey 
that  higher  law  even  to  the  extent  of  violating  the 
statutes,  and  setting  the  Constitution  at  naught. 

The  time  had  obviously  come  when  there  was  no 
longer  any  use  in  the  adoption  of  compromises  or  the 
passage  of  conciliatory  laws  by  statesmen  whose 
first  concern  was  for  the  preservation  of  the  Union. 
Compromises  were  no  longer  binding  upon  men's 
consciences  or  conduct.  Political  parties  refused  to 
regard  them  and  even  states  in  their  organized  capac- 
ity legislated  for  their  nullification,  asserting  their 
right  of  sovereignty  to  that  extent. 

It  is  obvious  that  peace  could  not  long  continue  in  a 
country  thus  violently  divided  against  itself  in  opin- 
ion and  sentiment.  Sooner  or  later  by  one  means  or 
another,  but  with  the  same  certainty  that  governs  the 
rising  and  the  setting  of  the  sun,  such  a  condition 
meant  war.  In  this  case  it  meant  that  within  the 
Union  so  afflicted  there  was  an  "irrepressible  conflict" 
of  opinion,  a  conflict  that  would  yield  to  no  argu- 
ment, submit  itself  to  no  law,  accommodate  itself  to  no 
circumstance  and  would  stoutly  insist  upon  irrecon- 
cilable contentions  on  the  one  side  and  the  other  until 
the  matter  should  be  decided  by  that  last  brutal 
arbitrament  of  man,  a  conflict  of  cannon,  musketry, 
and  mortars. 


118  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

Precisely  that  condition  of  affairs  had  been  reached 
in  the  United  States  when  the  compromise  measures 
of  1850  were  repudiated,  defied  and  nulhfied  by 
both  popular  and  legislative  authority.  Logically 
the  war  between  North  and  South  should  have  oc- 
curred then,  and  undoubtedly  it  would  have  occurred 
at  that  time  but  for  the  persistence  of  that  sentiment 
of  devotion  to  the  Union  which  still  dominated  the 
minds  of  a  majority  of  men  both  at  the  North  and 
at  the  South. 

It  was  in  obedience  to  that  sentiment  that  states- 
men refused  to  see  the  hopelessness  of  the  situation 
and  went  on  endeavoring  to  find  some  way  out  of  the 
difficulty  that  should  bring  peace  where  there  was  no 
peace,  and  save  the  Union  from  disruption. 

The  trouble  with  all  such  efforts  was  that  every- 
thing proposed  by  way  of  placating  those  on  one 
side  of  the  controversy  additionally  inflamed  those  on 
the  other. 

The  most  notable  legislative  outcome  of  this  vexed 
situation  was  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill,  for  which 
Senator  Douglas  made  himself  sponsor.  That  bill 
provided  for  the  erection  of  the  two  territories,  Kan- 
sas and  Nebraska,  leaving  it  to  those  who  should 
settle  within  that  domain  to  permit  or  exclude  slavery 
as  they  might  please  when  the  time  should  come  for 
them  to  apply  for  admission  to  the  Union  as  states. 
By  direct  implication  at  least  slaves  might  freely 
be  taken  into  those  territories  during  the  period  of 
their  territorial  existence  if  the  settlers  there  so 
desired. 

In  justice  to  the  memory  of  a  patriotic  statesman 


Repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise        119 

who  served  his  country  to  the  best  of  his  abihty,  it 
is  only  fair  that  his  doctrine  and  his  opinions  shall 
be  presented  in  his  own  words. 

In  the  speech  by  which,  in  1850,  he  placated  the 
animosity  that  had  greeted  him  at  Chicago,  he  set 
forth  his  thought  as  follows: 

These  measures  [the  compromise  measures  of  1850] 
are  predicated  upon  the  great  fundamental  principle  that 
every  people  ought  to  possess  the  right  of  framing  and 
regulating  their  own  internal  concerns  and  domestic  insti- 
tutions in  their  own  way.  .  .  .  These  things  are  all  confided 
by  the  constitution  to  each  state  to  decide  for  itself,  and  I 
know  of  no  reason  why  the  same  principle  should  not  be 
extended  to  the  territories. 

Three  years  later  Mr.  Douglas  carefully  set  forth 
his  doctrine  again  in  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  itself. 
Referring  to  the  Missouri  Compromise,  with  its  pro- 
hibition of  slavery  in  the  states  to  be  erected  out  of 
Louisiana  territory  north  of  36°  30',  the  bill  said: 

Which  being  inconsistent  with  the  principle  of  non-inter- 
vention by  Congress  with  slavery  in  the  states  and  territories, 
as  recognized  by  the  legislation  of  1850  ...  is  hereby 
declared  inoperative  and  void;  it  being  the  true  intent  and 
meaning  of  this  act  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any  territory 
or  state,  nor  to  exclude  it  therefrom,  but  to  leave  the  people 
thereof  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate  their  domestic 
institutions  in  their  own  way,  subject  only  to  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States. 

Mr.  Douglas's  doctrine,  popularly  known  as 
"Squatter  Sovereignty,"  was  open  to  criticism  on 
very  obvious  constitutional  and  historical  grounds. 

The  original  conception  of  the  Union  had  undoubt- 


120  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

edly  been  that  it  was  a  confederacy  of  states,  each 
sovereign  within  itself  except  in  so  far  as  it  had  sur- 
rendered to  the  National  Government  a  part  of  its 
sovereignty  by  accepting  the  Federal  Constitution 
and  entering  the  Union.  It  was  deemed  an  axiom 
that  each  state  was  free  by  the  will  of  its  own  citizens 
to  regulate  its  domestic  affairs  in  its  own  way,  per- 
mitting or  forbidding  slavery  at  its  own  free  will. 
After  the  great  slavery  controversy  arose  the  South 
contended  still  for  this  doc^trine  of  states'  rights,  and 
by  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill,  this  sovereignty  of  the 
states  was  extended  to  the  territories  also. 

The  student  of  history  must  observe  however  that 
that  doctrine  had  been  very  greatly  impaired  if  not 
indeed  set  aside  by  the  act  of  Virginia  in  ceding  her 
claims  in  the  Northwest  Territory  and  the  acceptance 
of  that  cession  by  the  general  government.  In  that 
cession  it  had  been  stipulated  that  slavery  should 
never  be  permitted  in  any  of  the  territory  thus  made 
a  part  of  the  national  domain.  The  cession  was  made 
with  the  direct  intent  that  the  region  concerned  should 
presently  be  divided  and  admitted  into  the  Union  as 
a  number  of  states.  But  those  states  were  thus  for- 
bidden in  advance  to  permit  the  existence  of  slavery 
within  their  borders.  So  far  as  they  were  concerned, 
therefore,  the  supposed  right  of  a  state  to  legislate  at 
will  on  that  subject  was  taken  away  from  them  even 
before  their  birth. 

Here  it  would  seem  there  was  an  abrogation  or  at 
least  an  important  modification  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  right  of  each  state  to  determine  this  question  for 


Repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise       121 

itself,  and  that  modification  had  been  made  by  Vir- 
ginia and  everywhere  accepted. 

The  Missouri  Compromise  in  precisely  the  same 
manner  had  taken  away  that  right  of  determination 
from  all  the  states  that  might  be  formed  out  of  the 
Louisiana  territory  lying  north  of  the  southern  line 
of  Missouri.  If  the  prohibition  thus  laid  upon  yet 
unborn  states  was  permissible  as  regards  the  cession 
of  the  Northwest  Territory  it  would  seem  to  have 
been  equally  so  with  regard  to  the  new  domain  west 
of  the  Mississippi. 

Further  than  this  the  sovereign  right  of  a  state  to 
determine  this  question  for  itself  did  not  extend  at 
any  time  to  the  territories.  Under  the  Constitution 
as  uniformly  interpreted  by  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States,  Congress  is  supreme  in  the  terri- 
tories and  may  make  any  law  that  it  pleases  for 
their  governance.  In  other  words  the  people  of  the 
territories  have  absolutely  no  rights  of  self-govern- 
ment except  such  as  Congress  may  from  time  to  time 
see  fit  to  confer  upon  them. 

This  statement  is  not  made  speculatively  or  as  an 
opinion  of  the  historian.  It  is  a  well  settled  doctrine 
of  constitutional  law,  affirmed  by  every  court  to  which 
the  question  has  at  any  time  been  submitted. 

Senator  Douglas's  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  was  based 
upon  an  assumption  precisely  the  reverse  of  this.  It 
extended  to  the  territories  a  sovereignty  which  under 
the  Constitution  belonged  only  to  states,  and  which, 
as  has  been  suggested,  the  states  themselves  had  in 
a  large  degree  surrendered  by  the  acceptance  of  the 
cession  of  the  Northwest  Territory. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

The  Kansas  War — The  Dred  Scott  Decision — 
John  Browne's  Exploit  at  Harper^'s  Ferry 

With  the  aid  of  a  considerable  Northern  vote  in 
Congress  the  South  succeeded  in  passing  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  Bill,  repealing  the  Missouri  Compromise, 
and  under  the  doctrine  of  "Squatter  Sovereignty" 
throwing  all  the  territories  open  to  slavery  at  least 
as  a  possibility. 

The  North  at  once  took  alarm  and  the  Free-soil 
party,  newly  named  the  Republican  party,  grew  in 
numbers  and  enthusiasm  as  no  other  party  had  ever 
done  before. 

Events  mightily  aided  this  growth,  driving  into  the 
Free-soil  or  Republican  party  many  thousands  of 
men  who  had  before  held  aloof  from  a  movement 
which  they  thought  to  be  dangerous  to  the  perpetuity 
of  the  Union  and  to  peace  within  its  borders. 

First  of  these  events  was  the  outbreak  of  civil 
war  in  Kansas.  The  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compro- 
mise opened  that  territory  at  once  to  settlement  by 
men  from  both  sections  and  at  the  same  time  opened 
the  question  whether  it  should  become  a  free  or  a  slave 
state.  Incidentally  a  contest  of  factions  began  which 
raged  hotly  to  the  end. 

Whether  Kansas  should  be  a  slave  state  or  a  free 
state  depended  upon  the  will  of  the  settlers  alone. 


The  Kansas  War  123 

The  land  was  in  many  respects  a  tempting  one  to 
emigrants  in  spite  of  the  aridity  of  its  western  part, 
so  that  even  without  any  incentive  of  poKtics  its 
speedy  settlement  was  quite  a  matter  of  course.  But 
politics  North  and  South  enormously  aided  in  that  be- 
half. There  was  a  rush  from  both  sections  to  fill  up 
and  occupy  the  land  in  order  to  control  it.  From  the 
Missouri  border  and  from  farther  south  slaveholders 
and  the  representatives  of  slavery  poured  into  the 
territory  in  great  numbers  with  the  purpose  of  voting 
it  into  the  Union  as  a  slave  state.  In  the  slang  of  the 
period  these  were  called  "border  ruffians."  On  the 
other  hand  there  was  an  "assisted  emigration"  from 
the  North,  the  emigration  of  men  whose  way  was  paid 
in  consideration  of  their  votes  and  their  rifle  practice 
against  slavery  in  Kansas.  These  called  themselves 
"Free  State  Men"  but  they  were  called  by  their  ad- 
versaries "Jayhawkers." 

In  order  to  promote  the  emigration  of  these  men  to 
Kansas  societies  were  formed  in  Massachusetts  and 
other  states  which  not  only  paid  their  way  but  fur- 
nished them  with  rifles  of  an  improved  pattern  and 
ammunition  in  plenty,  with  the  distinct  understanding 
that  it  was  their  duty  to  ply  both  the  bullet  and  the 
ballot  in  aid  of  the  cause  they  represented. 

These  two  groups  of  men  quickly  fell  by  the  ears, 
as  it  was  intended  that  they  should,  and  civil  war 
in  the  strictest  sense  of  that  term  ensued. 

John  Brown — an  able,  adventurous,  and  fanatical 
man — took  command  of  the  free  state  forces  and  be- 
tween him  and  his  adversaries  there  was  a  contest  for 
supremacy  which  involved  every  outrage  to  which 


124  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

civil  war,  waged  by  uncivilized  man,  can  give  birth. 
Small  battles  were  fought.  Men  on  either  side  were 
shot  or  hanged  without  mercy.  Homes  were  deso- 
lated. Women  and  children  were  driven  forth  to 
suffer  all  the  agonies  of  starvation,  of  cold,  and  of 
homelessness — all  in  aid  of  the  voting  one  way  or 
the  other. 

In  our  time  such  a  situation  in  a  territory  subject  to 
national  control  would  be  instantly  ended  by  the 
sending  of  troops  to  the  disturbed  region  with  in- 
structions to  preserve  order,  to  suppress  all  manner 
of  lawlessness,  and  to  protect  all  citizens  equally  in 
the  enjoyment  of  the  peaceful  possession  of  the  land. 
But  in  the  fifties  the  government  of  the  United  States 
was  still  unused  to  such  exercise  of  its  authority — 
parties  were  too  evenly  divided,  political  feeling  was 
too  hot  and  voters  were  far  too  sensitive,  to  admit  of 
such  a  treatment  of  the  situation  as  would  in  our 
time  seem  quite  a  matter  of  course.  Troops  were  sent 
to  Kansas,  it  is  true,  but  in  quite  insufficient  num- 
bers and  under  inadequate  instructions.  So  the  war 
in  Kansas  went  on  and  otherwise  peaceful  citizens  of 
the  Union  actively  aided  it  upon  the  one  side  or  the 
other  quite  as  if  it  had  not  been  a  civil  war  within 
the  Union  and  in  a  territory  in  which  the  authority  of 
Congress  was  supreme  beyond  even  the  possibility  of 
question. 

At  the  South  companies  of  armed  men  were  or- 
ganized, equipped,  and  sent  into  Kansas  nominally 
to  settle  there  and  vote  to  make  a  slave  state  of  the 
territory,  but  really,  if  possible,  to  drive  out  every 
"Free  State"  man  or  to  overawe  or  overcome  them 


The  Kansas  War  125 

all,  so  that  the  voting  might  be  all  one  way.  At  the 
North  similar  companies  of  men  were  organized  and 
armed  and  aided  to  emigrate  for  the  purpose  of  doing 
very  much  the  same  thing  to  the  representatives  of 
slavery  and  achieving  a  contrary  result  at  the  ballot 
box. 

Many  of  the  men  on  both  sides  were  not  genuine 
settlers  at  all  but  merely  armed  bandits  engaged  in  a 
mission  of  violence.  Yet  on  both  sides  they  were 
supported,  encouraged,  and  defended  in  their  law- 
lessness by  the  pulpit,  the  press,  and  every  other 
agency  of  civilization. 

Elections  were  held  in  the  territory  in  which  both 
sides  voted  their  men  without  question  as  to  their 
age,  the  length  of  their  residence  within  the  territory 
or  any  other  qualification  for  voting  which  the  loose 
laws  of  the  time  provided.  Every  devilish  device 
of  fraud  and  swindling  that  had  up  to  that  time  been 
invented  by  ingeniously  unscrupulous  politicians  was 
employed  on  the  one  side  or  the  other  without  so 
much  as  a  qualm  of  conscience  or  a  scruple  of 
conventionality. 

It  was  war  that  these  men  were  engaged  in  and 
elections  were  a  mere  pretense.  War  habitually  has 
ho  scruples  as  to  the  means  it  uses  for  the  overcoming 
of  an  adversary.  On  each  side  men  voted  who  had 
arrived  within  the  territory  just  in  time  for  the  elec- 
tion, cheerfully  perjuring  themselves  in  order  to  do 
so,  an  incident  which  nobody  seemed  to  regard  as  a 
serious  matter.  Each  side  voted  its  men  as  often  as 
it  could  under  the  loose  election  laws  of  the  time  and 
in  some  cases  that  was  very  often.    Ballot  boxes  were 


c 


126  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

stuffed  with  fraudulent  votes  by  one  side  and  were 
seized  and  destroyed  by  the  other. 

Conventions  fraudulently  chosen  by  such  practices 
as  these  framed  constitutions  which  were  one  after 
another  rejected  by  Congress. 

The  story  need  not  be  told  here  in  further  detail. 
The  struggle  continued  until  the  end  of  the  decade 
and  it  was  not  until  after  the  Confederate  War  had 
begun  that  the  territory  was  admitted  to  the  Union  as 
a  state.  In  the  meanwhile  the  eyes  and  minds  of  all 
the  people  in  the  country  were  concentrated  upon  that 
center  of  disturbance  and  the  situation  there  enor- 
mously increased  the  intensity  of  that  acrimony  which 
already  characterized  the  relations  of  men  North  and 
South. 

Another  event  which  tended  to  increase  the  acri- 
mony between  the  two  sections  of  the  country  and 
ultimately  to  bring  about  war  was  the  rendering  of 
the  "Dred  Scott"  decision,  which  alarmed  and  in- 
tensely angered  the  North. 

Dred  Scott  was  a  negro  slave  in  Missouri,  owned 
by  an  army  surgeon  who,  about  twenty  years  before, 
had  taken  him  as  a  servant  to  an  army  post  in  Illinois. 
Under  the  laws  of  Illinois  any  slave  taken  by  his 
master  into  that  state  was  by  that  act  set  free. 

Dred  Scott  remained  however  in  the  position  of  a 
slave  and  after  a  time  he  was  taken  back  to  Missouri. 
There  he  was  sold  to  a  new  master  whom  he  presently 
sued  for  assault  on  the  ground  that  his  former  master 
had  in  effect  set  him  free  by  voluntarily  taking  him 
into  a  free  state,  and  that  therefore  he  was  not  liable 
to  sale  or  to  a  chastisement  at  the  hands  of  a  master. 


The  Kansas  War  127 

The  negro  won  in  the  lower  courts  but  was  defeated 
upon  appeal.  Later,  circumstances  enabled  him  to 
bring  suit  in  the  United  States  Court,  and  finally  the 
case  went  on  appeal  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States.  The  questions  directly  and  indirectly 
involved  in  it  were  of  so  great  national  and  political 
interest  that  four  of  the  greatest  constitutional  law- 
yers in  all  the  land  volunteered  to  argue  it — two  of 
them  on  the  one  side  and  two  upon  the  other.  The 
argument  was  a  contest  of  intellectual  giants  with  the 
whole  country  looking  on  and  listening.  At  the  end 
of  it  the  judgment  of  the  court  was  rendered  by  Chief 
Justice  Taney  in  March,  1857.  The  decision  nega- 
tived all  of  Dred  Scott's  contentions  and  it  affirmed 
principles  that  were  even  more  offensive  to  Northern 
sentiment  than  its  negations  were.  It  amounted  in 
fact  to  a  judgment  that  state  laws  setting  free  such 
slaves  as  might  be  brought  into  the  states  concerned 
by  voluntary  act  of  their  masters  were  null  and  void. 
It  expressly  declared  unconstitutional  that  part  of 
the  Missouri  Compromise  which  forbade  slavery  in 
territories  north  of  36°  30'  north  latitude. 

So  completely  did  the  court  decide  upon  the  slavery 
side  of  the  question  that  Thomas  H.  Benton,  the 
great  Democratic  senator  from  Missouri,  character- 
ized this  deliberate  and  very  carefully  considered 
judgment  of  the  Supreme  Court  as  one  which  made 
slavery  the  organic  law  of  the  land  with  freedom  as 
a  casual  exception. 

The  victory  of  the  pro-slavery  radicals  was  here 
complete.  The  decision  gave  them  the  definite  judg- 
ment of  that  Supreme  Court  whose  decisions  rise 


128  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

above  congressional  enactment  and  set  aside  statutes, 
— that  court  from  whose  judgments  there  is  nowhere 
any  appeal  to  any  other  authority  on  earth — in  behalf 
of  their  most  extreme  contentions. 

If  that  decision  had  been  accepted  by  the  people, 
as  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  usually  are,  it 
would  indeed  have  made  slavery  a  national  institu- 
tion subject  only  to  such  limitations  as  the  individual 
states  might  impose  upon  it  within  their  own  borders 
and  without  interference  with  slaveholders  who  might 
choose  to  take  their  slaves  into  free  states  and  hold 
them  there. 

But  the  victory  of  the  slave  advocates — complete 
as  it  was — gave  them  no  practical  advantage.  Such  a 
doctrine  as  that  laid  down  by  the  court  simply  could 
not  find  acceptance  in  the  minds  of  men  at  the  North. 
Logically  it  ought  not  to  have  found  acceptance  with 
the  ultra  pro-slavery  men  of  the  South  for  the  reason 
that  it  distinctly  negatived  that  contention  for  states' 
rights  and  state  sovereignty  upon  which  they  relied 
in  their  contest  with  their  adversaries. 

Unfortunately  for  them,  in  the  course  of  his  deci- 
sion Chief  Justice  Taney  used  one  unhappy  phrase 
which  gave  even  greater  offense  perhaps  than  the 
decision  itself  did.  That  phrase  was  in  fact  no  part 
of  the  decision  but  was  what  the  lawyers  call  an  obiter 
dictum — a  saying  apart.  It  was  a  mere  statement  of 
what  the  Chief  Justice  believed  to  be  a  fact  of  history. 
It  was  not  at  all  a  ruling  of  the  court.  As  an  illus- 
tration of  his  meaning  he  made  the  perfectly  true 
statement  that  before  the  time  of  the  American  Revo- 
lution— and  he  might  have  included  a  much  later  date 


The  Kansas  War  129 

■ — the  negroes  "had  been  regarded  as  beings  of  an 
inferior  order  and  altogether  unfit  to  associate  with 
the  white  race  either  in  social  or  political  relations; 
and  so  far  inferior  that  they  had  no  rights  which  the 
white  man  was  bound  to  respect;  and  that  the  negro 
might  justly  and  lawfully  be  reduced  to  slavery  for 
his  benefit." 

This  statement  of  fact  as  to  the  attitude  of  the 
public  mind  toward  the  negro  before  the  Revolution 
was  entirely  correct,  as  every  educated  reader  knows, 
and  as  the  history  of  the  African  slave-trade — carried 
on  not  only  before  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution 
but  for  a  dozen  years  after  1808  when  the  constitu- 
tional prohibition  of  that  nefarious  traffic  went  into 
effect — perfectly  and  completely  shows. 

But  Chief  Justice  Taney's  simple  statement  of  this 
historical  fact  was  everywhere  interpreted  to  be  a 
part  of  his  legal  decision.  This  was  natural  enough 
under  the  circumstances  for  the  reason  that  slavery 
itself,  in  behalf  of  which  the  decision  seemed  to  have 
been  rendered,  rested  solely  upon  the  doctrine  that  a 
negro  has  no  rights  which  the  white  man  is  bound 
to  respect. 

Even  if  this  unfortunate  phrase  had  not  been  used 
and  even  if  it  had  not  been  misinterpreted  as  it  was, 
the  decision  itself  must  of  necessity  have  wrought 
something  like  a  revolution  in  the  thought  of  the 
Northern  people.  The  most  conservative  among  them 
had  reconciled  themselves  to  the  existence  of  slavery 
in  certain  of  the  states  upon  the  ground  that  each 
state  had  a  right  to  legislate  for  itself  upon  that  ques- 
tion and  therefore  that  each  state  was  alone  responsi- 

1-9 


130  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

ble  for  its  own  legislation.  They  were  startled  now 
by  the  challenge  of  a  Supreme  Court  decision  which 
denied  to  them  even  this  relief  of  conscience  and  even 
this  liberty  of  individual  state  action.  They  were 
asked  to  accept  the  doctrine  that  slavery  was  a 
national  institution  against  which  state  laws  were 
futile  except  in  a  very  limited  way. 

This  extreme  decision  in  favor  of  slavery,  coming 
as  it  did  at  the  very  time  when  civil  war  was  on  in 
Kansas,  not  only  inflamed  public  sentiment  at  the 
North  but  alarmed  it.  Already  the  political  party 
opposed  to  the  extension  of  slavery  had  mightily 
grown  in  numbers  and  in  enthusiasm.  In  1852  it  had 
cast  less  than  157,000  votes.  In  1856  its  vote 
amounted  to  1,341,264,  carrying  with  it  114  electoral 
votes  as  against  174  secured  by  its  chief  antagonist 
and  eight  thrown  away  on  a  third  candidate. 

During  that  four  years  the  Anti-slavery  party  had 
drawn  to  itself  through  force  of  circumstance  all  of 
the  Free-soil  Democracy  and  the  greater  part  of  the 
Northern  Whigs. 

In  1856  for  the  first  time  in  the  Republic's  history 
the  election  of  a  president  was  contested  by  a  party 
strictly  sectional  in  its  composition  and  the  fact  was 
alarming  not  only  at  the  South  but  almost  equally 
so  at  the  North.  The  conviction  was  general  that 
such  a  contest  meant  mischief  for  the  country.  .It 
was  the  first  sure  foreboding  of  that  war  which  was 
destined  to  come  a  little  later  between  the  sections. 

The  Republican  party  existed  exclusively  at  the 
North.  It  made  no  pretense  of  existing  in  the  South- 
ern half  of  the  Republic.    It  did  not  even  go  through 


The  Kansas  War  131 

the  empty  form  of  nominating  electors  in  the  South- 
ern states  either  in  1856  or  four  years  later  in  1860. 
It  did  not  hope  in  either  of  those  years  for  a  single 
electoral  vote  from  any  state  lying  south  of  the 
Potomac  or  the  Ohio.  Its  purpose  was  to  carry  the 
election  and  to  control  the  country  by  a  strictly  sec- 
tional and  geographical  vote — a  thing  that  had  never 
before  been  attempted  or  thought  of  by  any  party, 
and  a  thing  the  very  suggestion  of  which  caused  great 
alarm  throughout  the  country.  For,  men  anxiously 
asked,  if  one  section  of  the  Union  is  thus  to  dominate 
the  other  how  shall  we  be  able  to  maintain  the  Union 
in  its  present  disturbed  and  distracted  condition? 
Hitherto,  they  reflected,  majorities  have  been  drawn 
from  all  the  states  in  contests  that  were  purely 
national  in  their  inspiration  and  in  their  significance, 
and  all  men  have  held  themselves  bound  to  submit  to 
the  will  of  such  majorities,  as  representing  the  ulti- 
mate judgment  of  all  the  states  and  all  the  people; 
but,  they  anxiously  asked  themselves,  how  long  will 
the  states  or  the  people  of  one  part  of  the  country 
consent  to  be  governed  by  the  elected  candidates  of  a 
party  which  exists  solely  in  the  other  part  of  the 
country;  a  party  which  does  not  even  ask  for  votes 
except  in  that  other  part,  in  support  of  its  candidates ; 
a  party  whose  platform  is  one  of  avowed  hostility 
to  the  industrial,  social  and  domestic  labor  system 
of  the  southern  half  of  the  Republic;  a  party  which 
has  no  existence  or  recognition  or  representation  in 
that  part  of  the  Union,  and  which  includes  among 
its  most  active  and  aggressive  members  those  who 
openly  declare  their  purpose  to  overthrow  the  domes- 


132         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

tic  institutions  of  the  South,  in  defiance  of  all  consti- 
tutional guarantees,  and  by  any  means  that  may  be 
available,  even  including  servile  war  in  states  where 
the  negroes  outnumber  the  whites  by  two  or  three 
to  one? 

Considerations  of  this  kind  undoubtedly  restrained 
many  voters  at  the  North  in  the  election  of  1856,  and 
for  a  time  after  that  election  there  seemed  to  be  a 
promise  of  peace  in  the  influence  of  conservatism  on 
the  one  side  and  on  the  other  in  spite  of  what  was 
going  on  in  Kansas. 

At  the  same  time  the  state  of  feeling  throughout 
the  country  was  well-nigh  indistinguishable  from  that 
which  prevails  during  the  existence  of  actual  civil  war. 
Only  the  old  devotion  to  the  Union  which  existed  in 
both  the  Northern  and  Southern  mind  prevented  men 
from  flying  at  each  other's  throats. 

Then,  as  if  to  emphasize  the  inevitableness  of  war 
and  to  hasten  its  coming,  there  occurred  the  raid  of 
John  Brown  at  Harper's  Ferry,  Virginia,  in  the 
autumn  of  1859 — only  a  year  before  a  presidential 
election  must  occur. 

John  Brown  had  been  the  chief  leader  of  the 
Free  State  men  in  the  warlike  operations  in  Kansas. 
He  was  a  man  of  extraordinary  fanaticism,  limitless 
daring,  large  capacity,  and  relentless  determination. 
His  hostility  to  slavery  knew  absolutely  no  bounds. 
With  a  courage  which  had  no  balance  wheel  of 
discretion  to  regulate  it,  he  had  no  hesitation  in  under- 
taking great  enterprises  with  ridiculously  inadequate 
means,  and  in  the  end  he  showed  that  he  had  no 
flinching  from  the  personal  consequences  of  his  acts. 


The  Kansas  War  133 

In  June,  1859,  he  went  secretly  to  the  neighborhood 
of  Harper's  Ferry,  with  a  band  so  small  that  even 
after  its  reinforcement  it  was  manifestly  inadequate 
to  be  trusted  by  any  but  a  madman  to  accomplish 
the  work  that  Brown  had  laid  out  for  it  to  do. 
He  was  both  morally  and  materially  supported  by 
men  of  wealth  and  influence  at  the  North  who  blindly 
entrusted  him  with  arms,  ammunition,  and  money,  not 
knowing  or  inquiring  whither  he  was  going  or  what 
his  purposes  might  be. 

By  the  end  of  June,  1859,  he  had  established  him- 
self near  Harper's  Ferry  with  a  band  of  devoted 
followers  about  him.  One  by  one  the  men  who  had 
enlisted  in  his  service  joined  him  until  the  company 
numbered  twenty-two.  Still  his  purpose  was  wholly 
unsuspected  by  his  Virginian  neighbors. 

In  the  meanwhile  the  two  hundred  rifles  contributed 
by  George  L.  Stearns  of  Medford,  Mass.,  in  aid  of 
the  Kansas  controversy,  were  delivered  to  John 
Brown  who  had,  besides,  a  war  chest  of  five  hundred 
dollars  in  gold  given  to  him  by  Boston  enthusiasts 
in  aid  of  an  enterprise  concerning  which  they  had 
no  definite  information  whatsoever. 

His  purpose  was  to  establish  in  the  mountain  fast- 
nesses near  Harper's  Ferry  a  fugitive  slave  camp 
which  a  few  men  could  easily  defend  while  the  rest 
of  those  coming  into  it  could  be  run  ofi^  to  Canada  and 
freedom  with  ease  and  certainty.  In  effect  he  con- 
templated a  general  insurrection  of  the  slaves,  their 
concentration  in  easily  defensible  mountain  camps 
and  their  removal  to  Canada  from  these  military 
posts  as  rapidly  as  that  end  could  be  accomplished. 


134  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

This  program  if  successful  could  have  resulted  in 
nothing  less  than  a  slave  insurrection  and  a  bloody- 
servile  war. 

But  John  Brown's  program  failed  of  its  accom- 
plishment for  two  reasons.  There  was  far  less  of 
active  discontent  among  the  negroes  of  northern  Vir- 
ginia than  John  Brown  had  supposed.  Most  of  those 
negroes  in  fact  were  entirely  satisfied  with  their  con- 
dition and  treatment  and  so  they  refused  to  flee  to  him 
for  rescue  from  an  oppression  which  they  did  not  feel. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  Frederick  Douglass,  the 
ablest  representative  of  the  negro  race  and  by  all  odds 
the  ablest  negro  representative  of  abolitionism,  dis- 
approved and  discouraged  John  Brown's  enterprise. 
Especially  Frederick  Douglass  advised  against  John 
Brown's  policy  of  making  war  upon  the  United 
States.  That  was  the  second  and  the  controlling 
cause  of  his  failure.  It  seems  to  have  been  his  thought 
that  with  the  country  in  the  tempestuous  condition  it 
was  then  in  he  might  hopefully  assail  the  National 
Government  itself  and  that  in  such  an  assault  he 
would  have  behind  him  the  entire  Northern  people. 
How  badly  he  misunderstood  the  signs  of  the  times 
the  events  clearly  show. 

On  the  16th  of  October,  1859,  he  marched  with 
eighteen  men  upon  the  undefended  United  States 
arsenal  at  Harper's  Ferry,  broke  down  its  doors  and 
took  forcible  possession  of  the  premises. 

This  in  itself  was  an  easy  thing  to  do  for  the  rea- 
son that  the  Government,  seeing  no  occasion  to  appre- 
hend violence  of  such  sort,  had  made  no  adequate 
provision  for  the  defense  of  its  arsenal.    But  John 


The  Kansas  War  185 

Brown's  act  was  a  direct,  open,  and  flagrant  levying 
of  war  against  the  United  States  and  it  was  promptly- 
treated  as  such  by  the  Government  at  Washington. 
A  force  of  marines  was  sent  to  Harper's  Ferry  to 
eject  the  intruder  and  to  repossess  the  national 
arsenal. 

There  was  a  little  skirmish.  Many  of  John  Brown's 
men  were  killed  and  he  and  his  surviving  companions 
were  promptly  made  prisoners,  tried  for  treason, 
convicted  and  hanged. 

In  the  number  of  men  engaged,  in  the  amount  of 
damage  done,  and  in  its  immediate  consequences  this 
raid  of  John  Brown's  was  a  matter  of  no  moment 
whatever.  It  was  conspicuously  a  failure  so  far  as 
its  ulterior  purpose  of  inducing  slaves  to  flee  from 
bondage  and  engage  in  insurrection  was  concerned. 
It  was  still  more  conspicuously  a  failure  in  so  far 
as  it  meant  war  upon  the  United  States.  A  single 
company  of  marines  brought  it  to  an  end  without  the 
necessity  of  calling  in  any  larger  force.  But  the 
raid  had  a  very  important  influence  nevertheless,  upon 
the  future  history  of  the  country. 

It  illustrated  and  emphasized  as  no  previous  event 
had  done,  the  implacability  of  the  sentiment  hostile 
to  slavery.  It  demonstrated,  as  the  fact  had  never 
been  demonstrated  before,  the  hopelessly  irrepressible 
character  of  the  controversy  concerning  slavery.  It 
alarmed  and  angered  the  South  as  it  had  never  been 
alarmed  and  angered  before.  It  indicated  to  the 
Southern  people  the  fact  that  there  were  agencies 
active  at  the  North  which  would  stop  at  nothing  that 
might  help  to  the  abolition  of  slavery;  that  even  a 


136         History  of  the  Confederate  War  V 

servile  war,  with  all  the  brutality  and  bloodthirstiness 
that  servile  war  must  mean  to  the  South,  was  lightly- 
contemplated  by  a  certain  and  rapidly  growing 
Northern  opinion,  as  a  legitimate  means  for  the  ac- 
complishment of  abolition.  It  indicated  an  impla- 
cability of  sentiment  against  which  there  seemed  to 
be  no  defense  except  in  that  dissolution  of  the  Union 
which  the  extremists  on  both  sides  had  so  long  and 
so  freely  invoked  as  a  remedy  for  the  hopeless  divis- 
ion of  the  Republic  into  two  antagonistic  camps. 

John  Brown's  invasion  would  have  counted  for 
little  if  it  had  stood  alone.  But  the  rifles  that  he  had 
in  possession,  with  which  to  arm  fugitive  slaves,  had 
been  contributed  by  a  citizen  of  Massachusetts  under 
urgency  of  conspicuous  representatives  of  the  polit- 
ical party  that  sought  the  abolition  of  slavery.  The 
five  hundred  dollars  that  Brown  carried  with  him  as 
a  part  of  the  equipment  with  which  he  hoped  to  create 
a  servile  war,  was  contributed  by  Boston  citizens  and 
represented  a  hostility  as  unkind  as  it  was  unlawful. 
The  sanction  given  to  John  Brown's  insane  and  trea- 
sonable raid  by  many  newspapers  and  a  certain  part 
of  the  public  at  the  North  served  to  convince  even 
the  most  moderate  and  conservative  men  at  the  South 
that  there  was  no  longer  any  hope  or  prospect  of  re- 
conciliation between  the  two  sections  upon  any  basis 
of  reasonable  and  mutual  concession. 

It  was  in  this  mood  that  the  country  approached  the 
presidential  election  of  1860.  On  either  side  there 
was  a  strongly  surviving  love  for  the  Federal  Union, 
an  abiding  conviction  that  it  alone  could  guarantee 
the  perpetuity  of  the  American  idea  of  local  self -gov- 


The  Kansas  War  137 

ernment  and  personal  liberty.  But  on  either  side 
there  was  an  aggressive  party  of  disunion  which 
must  be  reckoned  with  in  politics.  On  the  side  of  the 
North  the  disunionist  party  desired  and  insisted  upon 
the  utter  and  immediate  and  unconditional  abolition 
of  slavery  as  the  sole  condition  of  the  Union's  further 
existence.  On  the  Southern  side  the  extremists  de- 
manded that  slavery  should  be  recognized  and  pro- 
tected as  a  national  institution,  with  local  and  state 
freedom  from  it  as  a  casual  incident  which  should  in 
no  way  be  permitted  to  interfere  with  the  right  of 
the  slaveholder  to  hold  his  slaves  in  bondage  even 
when  his  convenience  led  him  to  carry  them  into  any 
free  state;  and  still  further  that  the  people  of  every 
territory  should  be  free  to  decide  for  themselves 
whether  or  not  slavery  should  be  permitted  within 
the  domain  controlled  by  them.  Between  these  two 
opposing  parties  stood  the  overwhelming  but  rapidly 
weakening  majority  of  the  people,  insisting  that  the 
perpetuity  of  the  Union  was  of  greater  importance 
to  liberty  than  either  the  maintenance  or  the  extinc- 
tion of  slavery. 

How  these  forces  fought  the  matter  out  must  be 
the  subject  of  another  chapter. 


CHAPTER  IX 

The  Election  of  1860 

When  the  time  came  to  nominate  candidates  for 
the  presidential  election  of  1860,  something  akin  to 
despair  had  seized  upon  the  minds  of  men — a  despair 
that  discouraged  hopeful  conservatism  and  prompted 
many  to  courses  that  could  promise  nothing  other 
than  disaster  to  the  Union. 

In  the  event,  the  election  of  that  year  showed  that 
there  was  a  majority  of  nearly  a  million  votes  against 
the  Republican  party,  in  a  total  vote  of  about  four 
and  a  half  millions.  There  was  still  an  overwhelm- 
ing majority  of  the  people,  therefore,  who  regarded 
the  preservation  and  perpetuity  of  the  Republic  as 
the  paramount  concern.  There  is  every  reason  to 
believe  that  if  circumstances  had  so  shaped  them- 
selves as  to  put  that  matter  immediately  in  issue,  and 
if  the  contest  could  have  been  fairly  fought  out  be- 
tween the  two  opposing  sentiments  the  majority  of 
nearly  a  million  votes  cast  against  what  was  regarded 
as  a  sectional  party,  representing  a  purely  geograph- 
ical sentiment,  would  have  been  swelled  to  two  mil- 
lions or  more.  For  in  all  parts  of  the  country  the 
Union  was  still  an  object  of  adoration  and  the  Con- 
stitution remained  a  text-book  of  patriotic  study. 

But  the  battle  was  not  destined  to  be  fought  out 
on  those  lines.     Those  whose  supreme  concern  was 

138 


The  Election  of  1860  139 

for  the  preservation  of  the  RepubUc,  with  all  that 
it  signified  of  self-government  among  men,  were  di- 
vided in  council  and  were  in  consequence  defeated. 
It  sounds  like  a  paradox,  but  it  is  a  simple  state- 
ment of  fact  to  say  that  the  disruption  of  the  Union 
was  brought  about  by  the  disunion  of  the  Union 
forces. 

The  story  is  an  interesting  bit  of  history  and  a  most 
significant  one.  But  in  order  to  understand  it  clearly 
the  reader  should  bear  in  mind  the  excessively  strained 
state  of  feeling  in  the  country  which  has  already 
been  set  forth  in  these  pages.  In  aid  of  that  let  us 
briefly  recapitulate. 

The  events  of  the  recently  preceding  years  had 
gone  far  to  unseat  conservatism,  to  breed  a  hopeless 
discouragement,  and  to  induce  a  very  general  despair. 
The  civil  war  in  Kansas  had  been  lawless,  criminal 
and  murderous  on  both  sides. 

It  is  impossible  for  any  honest  mind  to  approve  the 
doings  of  the  men  on  either  side  in  that  struggle,  or 
to  regard  them  otherwise  than  as  criminal  attempts  to 
substitute  force  for  law  and  fraud  for  freedom  of  the 
ballot. 

Yet  on  each  side  the  tu  quoque  argument  was 
freely  and  justly  used;  on  either  side  the  criminal 
doings  of  the  partisans  of  that  side  were  regarded  as 
a  necessary  offset  to  the  criminal  doings  of  the  parti- 
sans of  the  other  side.  At  the  North  the  "free  state 
men"  were  encouraged  and  supported  by  a  large  part 
of  the  press  and  pulpit.  Great  preachers  pleaded 
from  their  sacred  desks  for  contributions  of  money 
with  which  to  arm  the  Northern  men  for  this  conflict. 


140         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

Great  leaders  of  radical  opinion  employed  the  press 
and  platform  in  the  like  behalf. 

On  the  other  hand,  at  the  South,  with  a  far  less 
orderly  organization  of  the  forces  that  control  popu- 
lar opinion  and  action,  there  was  an  equally  strong 
disposition  manifested  to  support  and  encourage 
those  Southern  youths  who  had  gone  into  Kansas  to 
struggle  for  the  establishment  of  slavery  there.  And 
on  each  side  there  was  a  manifest  willingness  to  shut 
eyes  to  such  lawlessness  and  such  crime  as  the  parti- 
sans of  that  side  might  find  it  necessary  and  conven- 
ient to  commit  in  behalf  of  the  "cause"  they  were 
set  to  serve. 

Then  had  followed  John  Brown's  attempt  at 
Harper's  Ferry  to  bring  about  that  most  terrible 
of  all  catastrophes,  a  slave  insurrection.  The  attempt 
itself  was  so  absurd  in  its  lack  of  means  conceivably 
adequate  to  the  end  proposed,  and  so  clearly  the  work 
of  a  madman  in  that  it  involved  a  direct  assault  upon 
a  national  arsenal,  making  itself  thus  the  insane  chal- 
lenge of  a  mere  handful  of  men  to  the  whole  power  of 
the  United  States,  that  it  might  have  been  dismissed 
from  men's  minds  as  men  are  accustomed  to  dismiss 
the  vagaries  of  demented  persons,  but  for  one  fact. 
The  John  Brown  raid  was  seriously  and  earnestly  ap- 
proved by  so  many  persons  and  pulpits  and  prints  at 
the  North,  as  was  shown  by  funeral  services  and 
otherwise,  that  it  was  regarded  at  the  South  as  a 
preliminary,  typical,  and  threateningly  suggestive 
manifestation  of  what  Northern  sentiment  intended 
to  do  to  the  South  whenever  it  should  have  the  neces- 
sary power.     How  largely  it  was  thus  sanctioned 


The  Election  of  1860  141 

was  later  shown  by  the  fact  that  during  the  succeed- 
ing war  the  song  that  celebrated  John  Brown's  raid 
made  itself  a  national  anthem  declaring  that  in  the 
advance  of  the  national  armies  his  "soul  was  march- 
ing on." 

To  the  Southern  people  John  Brown's  attempt 
to  stir  up  servile  insurrection  meant  all  of  horror,  all 
of  slaughter,  all  of  outrage  to  women  and  children 
that  it  is  possible  to  conceive.  It  meant  to  them  the 
overturning  of  society.  It  meant  the  dominance  of  a 
subject  and  inferior  race  outnumbering  the  whites 
in  many  states,  a  race  ignorant  and  passionate  in 
Virginia  and  Kentucky,  and  well-nigh  savage  in  the 
cotton  states.  It  meant  rapine  and  murder — rape, 
outrage  and  burning. 

There  were  still  many  at  the  South  who  desired  and 
earnestly  advocated  the  extirpation  of  slavery  by  any 
means  that  could  be  adopted  with  tolerable  safety  to 
Southern  homes,  but  John  Brown's  program  of  ab- 
olition by  servile  war — a  program  which  seemed  to 
them  to  be  accepted  by  Northern  public  sentiment — 
offered  them  a  threat  of  desolation  against  which, 
if  they  were  men,  they  were  bound  to  revolt  with 
all  the  force  they  could  command.  It  called  into  in- 
stant and  aggressive  activity  that  fundamental  im- 
pulse of  humanity,  the  all-controlling  instinct  of  self- 
preservation. 

On  the  other  side  the  increasingly  insistent  demand 
of  the  Southern  extremists  for  the  nationalization  of 
slavery  and  their  apparent  ability  to  force  such 
nationalization,  through  fugitive  slave  laws  against 
which  the  consciences  even  of  the  most  devoted  lovers 


,e> 


142         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

of  the  Union  at  the  North  revolted,  and  through  the 
decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court,  bred  in  that  quarter 
a  similar  despair  of  lasting  union.  Hundreds  of  thou- 
sands who  did  not  sympathize  with  the  purpose  to 
stir  up  servile  war  despairingly  felt  that  the  time 
had  come  when  the  demands  of  what  was  called 
"the  slave  power"  must  be  resisted  at  any  and  all 
risks,  and  resigned  themselves  to  the  employment  of 
any  means  that  might  be  found  necessary  to  that 
end.  They  felt  that  all  compromises  had  failed,  that 
all  efforts  to  enable  this  Nation,  as  Mr.  Lincoln 
phrased  it,  "permanently  to  endure  half  slave  and 
half  free,"  had  been  defeated  and  shown  to  be  futile. 

In  brief,  on  both  sides  of  the  line  of  cleavage,  a 
spirit  of  despairing  readiness  for  any  remedy,  how- 
ever drastic  it  might  be,  had  been  created  by  the  in- 
exorable circumstances  of  the  "irrepressible  conflict." 

There  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  if  the  situation  had 
been  clearly  understood,  nine  in  ten  of  all  Northern 
people  would  have  shrunk  with  horror  from  such  a 
program  of  destruction  as  that  which  John  Brown's 
raid  implied  and  intended — namely  the  overthrow  of 
the  United  States  Government  and  the  inauguration 
of  a  servile  insurrection  at  the  South. 

But  the  conditions  were  not  clearly  understood 
upon  either  side.  Upon  neither  side  did  the  people 
really  know  precisely  how  the  facts  of  the  situation 
presented  themselves  to  the  people  on  the  other  side. 
On  neither  side  was  there  enough  of  calm,  impartial 
deliberation  to  distinguish  between  the  excesses  of 
sentiment  and  conduct  and  provoking  self-assertion 
on  the  part  of  extremists  on  the  other  side  and  the 


The  Election  of  1860  143 

settled  purposes  of  the  great  majority.  Still  worse, 
on  neither  side  was  there  enough  resolute  calm- 
ness to  relegate  the  small  body  of  extremists  to  their 
proper  place  as  a  minority,  and  to  take  matters  out 
of  their  hands. 

The  thought  of  secession  rapidly  gained  ground 
at  the  South.  The  "slangy"  slogan  of  N.  P.  Banks 
— "Let  the  Union  slide"— was  accepted  as  a  policy 
by  increasing  multitudes  at  the  North. 

It  was  in  such  conditions  that  political  parties  made 
their  preparations  for  the  presidential  campaign  of 
1860. 

The  Democratic  party  represented  the  only  oppo- 
sition to  Repubhcanism  which  had  any  hope  or 
possibility  of  success.  It  was  in  a  clear  and  command- 
ing majority  in  the  Nation.  The  old  Whig  party  had 
dwindled  to  a  remnant,  and  the  greater  part  of  that 
remnant  would  have  voted  for  the  Democratic  candi- 
date in  an  election  directly  presenting  the  issue  of 
Democracy  and  nationalism  against  Republicanism 
and  a  geographical  division  of  the  people  into  parties. 

But  the  Democratic  party  was  itself  hopelessly 
divided.  The  radical  pro-slavery  men  at  the  South 
had  made  up  their  minds  to  disunion  as  a  thing  de- 
sirable and  necessary.  They  did  not  want  the 
Democratic  or  any  other  national  party  to  win  unless 
they  could  themselves  dominate  and  control  it.  The 
extreme  men  among  them  wanted  the  Republicans  to 
succeed  in  the  election  in  order  that  there  might  be  an 
excuse  for  secession. 

The   Democratic   nominating   convention   met   at 
Charleston,    S.    C,    on   April   23,    1860.      Senator 


144         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

Stephen  A.  Douglas  from  the  beginning  was  the  first 
choice  of  a  majority  of  the  delegates  as  the  party's 
candidate,  but  he  could  not  command  that  two-thirds' 
vote  which  the  party  had  always  insisted  upon  as 
a  condition  precedent  to  nomination.  In  his  Illinois 
campaign  against  Lincoln  in  1858,  Douglas  had 
been  logically  forced  to  make  certain  admissions  as 
to  the  right  of  the  people  in  a  territory  to  exclude 
slavery  from  it  before  it  became  a  state,  which  deeply 
offended  the  extremists  of  the  South.  There  was 
also  in  effective  play  the  active  desire  of  these  extrem- 
ists to  disrupt  the  party  and  secure  its  defeat  as  a 
pretext  for  secession.  To  have  nominated  Douglas 
at  that  time  would  have  been  to  elect  him  with  absolute 
certainty,  and  to  have  elected  him  in  1860  would  have 
been  to  postpone  the  program  of  secession  for  at  least 
four  years. 

So  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  the  radical  pro- 
slavery  men  held  out  against  Douglas's  nomination. 
They  in  the  end  seceded  from  the  convention  and 
after  ten  days  of  fruitless  wrangling  that  body  ad- 
journed without  making  a  nomination  or  adopting  a 
platform,  to  meet  again  at  Baltimore  on  the  eight- 
eenth of  June. 

This  second  meeting  of  the  convention  was  the 
signal  for  still  further  and  bitterer  wrangling.  The 
Southerners  again  withdrew  and  in  the  end  two  candi- 
dates were  nominated — Douglas  by  that  part  of  the 
convention  which  claimed  to  be  national  and  Breck- 
inridge by  the  Southern  wing. 

This  was  a  direct  invitation  to  defeat.  It  not  only 
compelled  such  a  division  of  the  Democratic  vote  as 


The  Election  of  1860  145 

to  render  the  success  of  either  Democratic  candidate 
impossible,  but  it  was  accompanied  by  the  still  further 
division  of  the  forces  opposed  to  the  strictly  sectional 
and  geographical  Republican  party.  The  old  Whigs 
and  those  in  sympathy  with  their  desire  to  preserve 
the  Union  if  possible,  had  met  in  convention  in  Balti- 
more on  the  ninth  of  May,  adopted,  as  their  plat- 
form, resolutions  pledging  devotion  to  "the  Union, 
the  Constitution  and  the  enforcement  of  the  laws," 
and  under  the  name  of  "the  Constitutional  Union 
party"  nominated  John  Bell  of  Tennessee  for  presi- 
dent and  Edward  Everett  of  Massachusetts  for 
vice-president. 

Their  purpose  was  to  bring  to  bear  for  the  preser- 
vation of  the  Union  the  votes  of  a  large  body  of  men 
who  would  not  vote  for  the  Republican  candidate  on 
the  one  hand  or  for  either  of  the  Democratic  candi- 
dates— presently  to  be  nominated — on  the  other. 
Their  hope  was  that  among  four  candidates  there 
would  be  no  election,  and  that  in  an  election  by  states 
in  the  House  of  Representatives  their  candidate 
might  be  chosen  as  one  upon  whom  lovers  of  the 
Union  could  unite  without  regard  to  party. 

When  the  election  came  they  polled  no  less  than 
589,581  votes  and  carried  thirty-nine  electoral  votes 
against  Douglas's  twelve  and  Breckinridge's  seventy- 
two.  But  their  hope  of  throwing  the  election  into 
the  House  of  Representatives  was  doomed  to  disap- 
pointment. 

The  Republican  convention  met  at  Chicago  on  May 
16,  and  after  some  contest  nominated  Mr.  Lincoln. 
When  all  the  nominations  were  made,  presenting 
i-io 


146         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

three  candidates  in  opposition  to  him,  Mr.  Lincoln's 
election  was  practically  certain,  with  only  the  remote 
chance  that  the  choice  might  be  thrown  into  the 
House  of  Representatives,  as  a  possible  doubt  of  that 
result.  In  fact  he  was  elected,  though  the  majority 
against  him  on  the  popular  vote  was  nearly  a  million. 

In  the  meantime  the  canvass  had  mightily  tended 
to  additional  embitterment.  It  had  drawn  the  line 
more  sharply  than  ever  between  the  sections.  It  had 
completely  disrupted  and  scattered  into  three  war- 
ring groups  all  those  forces  that  stood  out  against  a 
party  which  had  no  being  except  in  one  section  of  the 
Union.  It  had  familiarized  men's  minds  with  the 
idea  of  disunion.  It  had  been  a  campaign  of  threats 
and  defiances.  It  had  well-nigh  made  an  end  of  con- 
servatism as  a  sentiment  influential  on  either  side.  It 
had  intensified  distrust,  accentuated  hatred,  embit- 
tered the  relations  of  men,  and  prepared  the  minds 
of  the  people  North  and  South  for  disunion  and  war. 

The  time  had  come  which  statesmen  had  so  long 
foreboded  when  threats  of  disunion — oft  repeated  on 
both  sides  and  usually  received  scoffingly  as  mere 
vaporings — took  on  a  seriously  menacing  character. 
The  time  had  come  when  the  warring  sectional  inter- 
ests, prejudices  and  principles  were  ready  to  make 
final  appeal  to  the  brutal  arbitrament  of  steel  and 
gunpowder.  The  situation  had  been  strained  to  the 
breaking  point,  and  the  fact  that  it  did  not  break  at 
once  was  due  to  conditions  and  inspirations  whichl 
need  another  chapter  for  their  explanation. 


CHAPTER  X 

The  Birth  of  War 

The  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  filled  the  whole  coun- 
try with  alarmed  apprehension.  At  the  North  no  less 
than  at  the  South  men  anxiously  asked  of  themselves 
and  of  their  neighbors  "What  is  going  to  happen?" 

What  had  already  happened  was  something  un- 
precedented in  the  history  of  the  country.  On  its  face 
it  was  merely  the  election  of  a  president  by  a  majority 
of  the  electoral  college  vote,  against  whose  election 
there  had  been  a  heavy  popular  majority. 

The  like  had  happened  several  times  before  and 
the  occurrence  had  never  before  excited  the  least  ap- 
prehension or  created  the  least  alarm  or  suggested 
the  smallest  protest.  It  had  been  accepted  in  every 
case  as  a  natural  result  of  our  complex  electoral  sys- 
tem, which  combines  representation  of  population 
with  representation  of  the  states  as  such  without  re- 
gard to  population,  and  which  gives  to  each  state  the 
right  to  cast  the  whole  of  its  electoral  vote  in  accord- 
ance with  the  will  of  a  majority  of  its  people.  It 
was  a  recognized  fact  that  under  this  system  a  presi- 
dent might  easily  be  chosen  by  a  minority  vote  of  the 
people,  provided  that  minority  vote  was  so  distributed 
among  the  states  as  to  secure  an  electoral  majority 
in  his  behalf.  There  was  no  ground  of  complaint, 
therefore,  and  in  fact  no  complaint  was  anywhere 

147 


148         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

made,  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  elected  in  the  face  of  an 
adverse  majority  of  about  950,000  popular  votes. 

But  there  was  a  much  more  significant,  and,  as  it 
seemed  to  many  minds,  a  much  more  alarming  fact 
behind  his  election.  That  election  was  purely  and 
exclusively  sectional.  Of  the  one  hundred  eighty 
electoral  votes  cast  for  him,  not  one  had  come  from 
any  state  lying  south  of  the  Potomac  or  the  Ohio 
nor  had  his  candidacy  been  supported  in  the  popular 
vote  by  even  a  handful  in  that  half  of  the  country. 
Both  on  the  popular  and  on  the  electoral  vote  his  sup- 
port had  been  purely  geographical,  and  even  on  geo- 
graphical lines  it  had  been  little  more  than  a  majority. 
In  the  slave  states  he  had  had  no  support  at  all,  while 
in  the  free  states  taken  by  themselves  his  popular  ma- 
jority was  only  186,964,  the  vote  of  the  free  states 
standing  1,731,182  for  him  and  1,544,218  against  him. 

In  other  words,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  elected  in  face  of 
an  adverse  popular  majority  of  about  950,000  in  the 
whole  country,  by  a  narrow  popular  majority  of  less 
than  200,000  in  one  section  of  the  country.  He  was 
the  candidate  of  a  party  which  had  absolutely  no 
existence  in  the  southern  part  of  the  Republic,  and 
which  existed  avowedly  only  in  antagonism  to  the 
institutions  of  that  part  of  the  country. 

For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  Republic 
there  had  occurred  a  purely  geographical  election. 
For  the  first  time,  as  the  South  interpreted  the  matter, 
one  section  of  the  country  had  assumed  the  right  to 
govern  another.  For  the  first  time  a  party  dom- 
inating one  section  by  a  narrow  majority  and  having 
no  shadow  of  existence  in  the  other  section  had  come 


The  Birth  of  War  149 

into  power  with  authority  to  rule  both,  so  far  at 
least  as  executive  and  administrative  power  was  con- 
cerned. For  the  first  time  that  geographical  division 
of  the  country  had  occurred  in  fear  and  dread  of 
which  as  a  possibility  so  many  of  the  original  states 
had  hesitated  to  ratify  the  Constitution  itself. 

Worse  still,  so  far  as  the  future  of  the  Republic 
was  concerned,  this  purely  geographical  election  had 
been  sought  and  secured  upon  a  purely  geographical 
and  sectional  question.  Refine  the  matter  as  the  plat- 
form-makers might,  and  qualify  and  explain  policies 
as  the  party  did,  the  fact  was  as  apparent  then  as  it 
is  now  that  the  sole  reason  for  the  Republican  party's 
existence  was  hostility  to  slavery  and  an  earnest  de- 
sire to  abolish  that  institution  in  this  land  by  whatever 
means  there  might  be  available  to  that  end.  That 
purpose  alone  held  together  in  political  union  the 
otherwise  discordant  elements  of  which  the  party  was 
composed.  In  other  words  a  party  founded  exclu- 
sively upon  hostility  to  the  domestic  institutions  of 
the  Southern  States  had  elected  a  president  by  means 
of  a  purely  sectional  and  geographical  vote,  against 
the  expressed  will  of  the  people  as  reflected  in  a 
popular  majority  of  nearly  a  million  ballots. 

These  facts  of  history  are  here  set  forth  not  by  way 
of  condemnation  and  not  at  all  with  any  intent  to 
criticise  them  or  the  authors  of  them  adversely,  but 
solely  in  aid  of  understanding.  They  are  set  forth 
in  order  that  the  reader  who  was  not  born  early 
enough  in  the  nineteenth  century  to  remember  them 
may  understand  the  conditions  and  circumstances 
that  gave  birth  to  the  war. 


150         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

The  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  under  these  circum- 
stances and  in  this  way  was  accepted  by  the  extreme 
pro-slavery  men  at  the  South  as  a  challenge  to  them 
to  dissolve  the  Union  if  they  dared.  They  proceeded 
to  accept  the  challenge,  but  their  influence  was  not 
dominant  in  Virginia  or  in  those  states  which  looked 
to  Virginia  for  guidance  in  this  crisis  and  the  lack  of 
such  dominance  was  an  embarrassment  to  them. 
South  Carolina,  in  which  state  the  extremists  were 
most  influential,  adopted  an  ordinance  of  secession  on 
the  twentieth  of  December,  1860.  The  other  cotton 
states  followed  South  Carolina's  lead  until  seven  of 
them  were  counted  as  seceding  states.  But  Virginia 
resolutely  held  aloof,  and  North  Carolina,  Kentucky, 
Tennessee,  Arkansas,  and  Missouri  awaited  Virginia's 
leadership,  while  Maryland  and  Delaware  stood  firmly 
by  the  Union. 

Without  these  states  the  attempt  to  disrupt  the 
Union  would  of  course  have  been  an  absurdity  from 
the  beginning.  But  unless  Virginia  could  be  drawn 
into  the  movement  the  other  border  states  were  reso- 
lute to  withhold  themselves  from  it,  for  the  double 
reason  that  Virginia's  influence  as  the  mother  of  the 
states  concerned  was  paramount,  and  that  Virginia's 
geographical  position,  the  numbers  of  her  popula- 
tion, her  importance  in  American  history  and  her 
productiveness  of  those  supplies  upon  which  military 
operations  must  depend,  rendered  that  state  an  abso- 
lutely indispensable  member  of  the  new  Confederacy 
if  its  war  of  independence  was  to  be  in  the  least 
degree  hopeful  of  success. 

The  seceding  states  sent  delegates  to  a  convention 


The  Birth  of  War  151 

at  Montgomery,  Alabama,  in  early  February,  1861, 
and  there  set  themselves  up  as  a  new  and  independent 
republic  under  the  name  of  "The  Confederate  States 
of  America."  But  neither  Virginia  nor  the  other 
border  states  were  represented  in  that  convention. 

Virginia,  on  the  fourth  of  February,  elected  a  con- 
stitutional convention  to  consider  the  question  of  seces- 
sion. The  result  of  that  election  was  altogether 
hostile  to  the  purposes  of  the  secessionists.  An  over- 
whelming majority  of  the  convention  elected  on  that 
date  consisted  of  men  resolutely  opposed  to  the  policy 
of  secession. 

Here  a  nice  distinction  must  be  made.  The  Vir- 
ginians generally,  and  their  accredited  representatives 
in  the  constitutional  convention,  believed  absolutely 
and  without  a  shadow  of  questioning  in  the  constitu- 
tional right  of  any  state  to  secede  from  the  Union  at 
will.  They  agreed  also  in  the  conviction  that  the 
National  Government  had  no  constitutional  right  or 
power  to  use  force  of  any  kind  in  order  to  prevent 
the  secession  of  any  state  or  in  order  to  compel  its 
return  to  the  Union. 

But  while  they  held  these  doctrines  to  be  absolutely 
indisputable,  the  Virginians  resolutely  rejected  se- 
cession as  a  policy.  They  saw  nothing  in  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's election  to  justify  a  resort  to  so  extreme  a 
remedy,  and  they  refused  their  assent  to  that  method 
of  procedure.  It  is  important  to  bear  in  mind  the 
distinction  between  the  Virginian  conception  of  states' 
rights  and  the  Virginian  conception  of  policy  in  the 
conditions  created  by  Mr.  Lincoln's  election,  because 
upon  that  distinction  hung  the  issue  of  peace  or  war 


152         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

in  the  Republic.  For  nothing  could  be  more  certain 
than  that  without  Virginia's  pith  and  substance,  and 
without  the  assistance  of  the  states  that  waited  for 
Virginia's  decision  before  rendering  their  own,  the 
cotton  states  would  not  have  undertaken,  seriously,  a 
war  of  independence,  or  if  they  had  done  so,  would 
not  have  been  able  to  maintain  their  struggle  against 
the  Federal  power  for  any  considerable  time. 

Everything  hinged  upon  Virginia's  course  and 
Virginia  resolutely  repudiated  the  policy  of  secession, 
denying  that  Mr.  Lincoln's  election  afforded  any 
just  occasion  or  any  sufficient  excuse  for  a  resort  to 
that  extreme  remedy. 

Accordingly  all  the  forces  of  secession  were  brought 
to  bear  upon  Virginia.  All  the  hotheads  in  the 
state  and  many  from  other  states,  were  set  to  make 
speeches.  Most  of  the  newspapers  were  purchased 
and  placed  in  control  of  intemperate  radicals  who 
could  be  depended  upon  to  make  life  not  worth  living 
for  any  man  who  hesitated  to  precipitate  war.  John 
M.  Daniel,  a  gifted  man  of  extreme  views  and  highly 
intemperate  prejudices,  came  home  from  his  con- 
sular mission  abroad  and  resumed  control  of  his  news- 
paper, the  Richmond  Examiner,  only  to  make  of  its 
columns  a  daily  terror  to  every  man  in  the  convention 
or  out  of  it  who  ventured  to  hope  for  peace  and  the 
perpetuity  of  the  Union,  through  the  efforts  of  John 
J.  Crittenden's  peace  conference  or  through  any  other 
conceivable  agency  of  compromise  or  reconciliation. 
Commodore,  and  afterwards  Admiral,  Farragut — 
himself  a  Southerner,  and  a  resident  at  that  time  of 
Virginia, — said  that  Virginia  was  "dragooned  out  of 


The  Birth  of  War  158 

the  Union."  The  phrase  is  not  quite  accurately  de- 
scriptive of  what  happened,  but  at  any  rate  it  correctly 
describes  the  attempts  made  to  compel  Virginia's 
secession  and  to  secure  with  it  the  addition  of  all 
the  strength  of  all  the  border  states  to  the  newly 
formed  Confederacy. 

The  dragooning  was  attempted,  but  Virginia  re- 
fused to  yield.  Her  convention,  undoubtedly  repre- 
senting with  accuracy  the  will  of  her  people,  held  out 
in  opposition  to  every  suggestion  of  the  state's 
withdrawal  from  the  Union. 

Virginia  stood  thus  as  a  bulwark  against  civil  war 
for  more  than  two  moons,  and  there  is  little  doubt 
that  her  influence  and  her  attitude  would  have  been 
effectual  in  preventing  the  war  if  only  a  technicality 
had  been  put  aside  in  order  that  Virginia  might  not 
be  forced  to  array  herself  against  that  Union  of 
which  she  was  largely  the  author  and  to  which  she 
still  clung  with  loyal  allegiance. 

When  in  the  middle  of  April,  1861,  after  the  bom- 
bardment of  Fort  Sumter,  Mr.  Lincoln  issued  a  call 
for  75,000  men  to  form  an  army  with  which  to  coerce 
the  seceding  states  into  submission,  and  included  Vir- 
ginia in  that  call,  the  Virginians  felt  themselves  bound 
to  choose  between  a  secession  for  which  they  saw  no 
possible  occasion,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  lending  of 
Virginia's  power  on  the  other  to  a  program  of  coer- 
cion for  which  they  recognized  no  constitutional  war- 
rant and  no  moral  right.  In  making  such  a  choice 
they  saw  but  one  honorable  course  open  to  them.  A 
convention  which  had  stood  out  against  secession  in 
face  of  vituperation,  contumely  and  every  other  force 


154         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

that  could  be  brought  to  bear  in  that  behalf,  voted 
for  secession  at  the  last  as  an  alternative  to  injustice 
and  dishonor. 

This  act — which  the  wisely  diplomatic  omission  of 
Virginia  from  the  call  for  troops  would  have  averted 
— made  the  war  not  only  possible  but  a  fact. 

But  this  is  getting  well  ahead  of  the  story.  Let 
us  go  back. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  elected  on  the  sixth  of  November, 
1860.  He  could  not  take  his  seat  until  the  fourth  of 
March,  1861.  In  the  meantime  the  Government  must 
remain  in  the  hands  of  the  peculiarly  irresolute  ad- 
ministration of  James  Buchanan,  whose  sole  concern 
seemed  to  be  to  postpone  the  outbreak  of  actual  hos- 
tilities until  the  expiration  of  his  own  term  of  office. 

Commissioners  were  sent  to  him  from  the  seceding 
states  to  arrange  for  the  peaceful  dissolution  of  the 
Union.  He  had  no  constitutional  power  to  negotiate 
with  them  and  he  very  properly  refused  to  receive 
them  in  their  official  capacity.  But  on  the  other  hand 
he  did  absolutely  nothing  to  prevent  or  to  check  or 
in  any  way  to  interfere  with  the  organization  of  the 
seceding  states  as  a  power  in  open  resistance  to  the 
Union.  It  is  a  fact  now  apparent  to  all  students  of 
history  that  but  for  Virginia's  refusal  to  join  the 
secession  movement,  carrying  with  it  as  it  did  the 
refusal  of  the  other  border  states,  there  would  have 
been  an  organized  power  ready,  upon  Mr.  Lincoln's 
accession  to  office,  to  assert  and  maintain  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  Southern  states  against  any  force 
that  the  North  could  have  brought  to  bear  against 
them. 


The  Birth  of  War  155 

The  regular  United  States  army  at  that  time  was 
ridiculously  inadequate  in  numbers  to  undertake  any 
enterprise  of  consequence.  Its  feeble  forces  were 
scattered  from  Maine  to  Texas,  from  Florida  to 
Oregon.  Its  hands  were  more  than  full  with  the  task 
of  holding  the  Indians  in  subjection  and  protecting 
the  borders  against  the  ravages  of  savage  war.  The 
Buchanan  administration  called  no  volunteers  into  the 
field,  while  in  every  Southern  state  there  were  mus- 
terings  at  every  county  seat  and  military  organiza- 
tions of  a  formidable  character. 

In  the  meantime  the  newly  elected  president  and 
those  who  supported  him  had  no  opportunity  to 
make  preparation  for  meeting  these  conditions.  They 
were  not  even  privileged  to  advise. 

The  administration  that  still  remained  in  power  was 
rapidly  disintegrating.  Four  of  the  cabinet  officers 
resigned  their  places,  thus  still  further  paralyzing  the 
hands  of  the  President.  At  the  North  there  was  a 
fixed  conviction  that  secession  was  merely  a  bit  of 
political  play  which  would  never  be  pushed  to  the 
point  of  actual  war  and  consequently  there  was  very 
little  of  military  preparation,  while  all  the  able-bodied 
young  men  of  the  South,  and  even  of  Virginia,  which 
so  emphatically  refused  to  secede,  were  organizing 
and  drilling  and  holding  themselves  in  readiness  for 
whatever  might  happen. 

But  everywhere  there  was  apprehension.  From 
the  hour  of  the  election  returns  in  November  until  the 
incoming  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  administration  on  the 
fourth  of  March,  conservative  men  at  the  North  and 
at  the  South  anxiously  busied  themselves  in  an  en- 


156  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

deavor  to  find  a  way  out  of  the  difficulty,  to  save  the 
Union  from  disruption  and  the  country  from  civil 
war. 

On  the  second  day  of  December  the  Albany 
Evening  Journal^  a  newspaper  edited  by  Thurlow 
Weed  and  the  personal  organ  of  Mr.  Seward,  ap- 
pealed strongly  and  even  passionately  to  patriotism 
throughout  the  country  for  "such  moderation,  and 
forbearance  as  will  draw  out,  combine  and  strengthen 
the  Union  sentiment  of  the  whole  country." 

But  this  and  like  appeals  made  by  Union-loving, 
patriotic  men  North  and  South  fell,  not  so  much  upon 
deaf  ears  as  upon  the  ears  of  those  who  had  lost 
control  of  their  respective  parties.  Had  the  conserv- 
ative men  of  the  Nation  been  able  to  act  together, 
they  must  undoubtedly  have  prevailed  for  peace  in 
virtue  of  their  majority  of  a  million,  but  on  both  sides 
the  radicals  had  seized  upon  the  reins.  At  the  South 
the  secessionists  were  rejoicing  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  elec- 

.     tion  under  circumstances  that  ffave  excuse  for  the 

I      dissolution  of  the  Union.    At  the  North  the  radical 
abolitionists  saw  and  welcomed  in  that  event  an  op- 
portunity to  use  the  whole  power  of  the  Federal 
;  /     Government  for  the  final  extirpation  of  African  slav- 
X      ery.    At  the  North  and  at  the  South  the  extremists 

\      were  in  control,  chiefly  by  virtue  of  their  intensity 

\    and  their  clamor. 

On  neither  side  did  the  radicals  desire  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  Union;  on  neither  side  did  they  seek  any 
amicable  adjustment  of  the  controversy.  On  the  con- 
trary they  invoked  controversy,  invited  disunion  and 


^, 


courted  war. 


The  Birth  of  War  157 

In  Congress  many  efforts  were  made  to  find  a  plan 
and  a  basis  of  adjustment.  By  a  vote  of  145  to  38 
the  House  of  Representatives  created  a  committee 
of  one  member  from  each  state  to  consider  the  state 
of  the  Union  and  to  report  measures  of  pacification. 
The  Senate  adopted  measures  of  like  purport. 

In  that  body  Andrew  Johnson  of  Tennessee — 
afterwards  president — deliberately  proposed  a  con- 
stitutional amendment  to  the  effect  that  thereafter 
the  president  and  vice-president  should  be  chosen  the 
one  from  the  North  and  the  other  from  the  South 
and  that  the  two  sections  should  alternately  enjoy  the 
advantage  of  furnishing  the  incumbent  of  the  higher 
office. 

Even  at  that  excited  and  unreasoning  time  there 
was  probably  no  more  insane  proposal  made  than  this. 
It  would  have  put  sectionalism  into  the  Constitution 
itself.  It  would  have  limited  both  parties  in  their 
choice  of  candidates  to  men  resident  in  one  section 
or  in  the  other;  it  would  have  made  of  the  so-called 
Mason  and  Dixon's  line  a  divisional  boundary  over 
which  no  political  power,  no  popular  preference,  no 
vote,  however  overwhelming,  could  step;  it  would 
have  changed  the  United  States  from  the  condition 
of  a  single,  federal  republic  in  which  all  the  states 
and  all  citizens  were  possessed  of  equal  rights  into  a 
bifurcated  alliance  between  two  antagonistic  groups 
of  states,  the  chief  bond  of  union  between  which 
would  have  been  an  agreement  that  they  should  al- 
ternately govern  each  other. 

Surely  nothing  more  senseless,  more  absurd  or 
more  impracticable  than  this  was  ever  proposed  in 


158         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

any  country  by  anybody  pretending  to  be  a  states- 
man. But  the  fact  that  it  was  seriously  proposed 
and  earnestly  urged  by  a  senator  who  at  the  next 
election  was  nominated  and  elected  vice-president 
and  who  became  president  by  virtue  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
assassination,  is  suggestive  at  least  and  illustrative 
of  the  intensity  with  which  the  country  and  its  states- 
men were  at  that  time  longing  for  a  way  out  of  the 
difficulty  and  endeavoring  to  find  it. 

In  the  meanwhile  the  radicals  and  extremists  on 
both  sides  laughed  and  jeered  at  all  such  endeavors 
to  save  a  Union  which  they  had  doomed  to  destruc- 
tion by  their  common  fiat,  though  in  nothing  else 
were  they  agreed.  They  found  means  of  thwarting 
every  effort  of  conservatism,  and,  by  intemperate 
and  incessant  vituperation,  they  succeeded  in  driving 
many  thousands  out  of  the  ranks  of  patriotic  con- 
servatism on  the  one  side  or  the  other,  and  into  sup- 
port of  their  demand  for  disunion,  chaos  and  black 
night. 

It  was  frankly  recognized  by  many  leaders  of  pub- 
lic opinion  at  the  North,  that  the  Southerners  were 
somewhat  justified  in  their  attitude  by  their  miscon- 
ception of  the  Republican  party's  purposes  and 
Jx  views,  a  misconception  to  which  the  intemperate  ut- 
terances of  extreme  anti-slavery  men,  very  naturally 
\^  ministered.  It  was  in  recognition  of  this  natural 
misunderstanding  that  Senator  Benjamin  F.  Wade, 
himself  an  earnest  and  even  extreme  anti-slavery 
man,  said  in  the  Senate,  two  days  before  South  Caro- 
lina seceded: 

"I  do  not  so  much  blame  the  people  of  the  South, 


*     The  Birth  of  War  159 

because  I  think  they  have  been  led  to  believe  that 
we,  to-day  the  dominant  party,  who  are  about  to  take 
the  reins  of  government,  are  their  mortal  foes,  and 
stand  ready  to  trample  their  institutions  under  foot." 

That  was  precisely  what  the  Southern  people  be- 
lieved. They  were  firmly  convinced  that  the  success 
of  the  Republican  party  meant  a  merciless,  relentless, 
implacable  war  upon  their  labor  and  social  system  and 
upon  themselves  as  the  supporters  and  beneficiaries 
of  that  system. 

Nevertheless  they  clung  to  the  Union  and  labored 
for  its  preservation.  Virginia  supported  by  the  other 
border  states  made  every  effort  to  secure  a  pacifica- 
tion. 

Chief  among  these  efforts  was  that  made  in  Con- 
gress by  John  J.  Crittenden  of  Kentucky.  On  the 
nineteenth  of  December,  the  day  before  South  Car- 
olina's adoption  of  the  ordinance  of  secession,  Mr. 
Crittenden  offered  a  series  of  resolutions  in  the  Sen- 
ate which  were  designed  to  compose  the  troubles  of 
the  time  and  to  furnish  a  basis  of  peaceful  settlement. 

Mr.  Crittenden  proposed  amendments  to  the  Con- 
stitution providing: 

1.  That  slavery  should  be  prohibited  in  all  terri- 
tories north  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  line  while 
they  remained  territories  and  freely  permitted  in  all 
territories  south  of  that  line,  but  with  the  provision 
that  every  state  to  be  formed  out  of  such  territory, 
whether  lying  north  or  south  of  that  line,  should  be 
free  to  decide  for  itself  whether  or  not  as  a  state  it 
would  permit  slavery. 

2.  That  Congress  should  have  no  power  to  abolish 


160  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

slavery  in  any  place  subject  to  the  exclusive  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  United  States — meaning,  of  course,  the 
District  of  Columbia,  the  public  reservations  and  the 
territories.  It  was  especially  provided  that  Congress 
should  at  no  time  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of 
Columbia  without  the  consent  of  the  state  of  Mary- 
land and  of  the  owners  of  slaves  within  the  District. 

3.  That  Congress  should  not  in  any  way  forbid 
the  traffic  in  slaves  from  one  slave  state  to  another. 

4.  That  the  United  States  should  be  liable  for  the 
value  of  any  fugitive  slave  whose  recapture  should 
be  prevented  by  force  or  by  intimidation  and  that  the 
county  in  which  the  force  or  intimidation  had  been 
used  should  be  liable  to  the  United  States  for  the 
mulct. 

There  were  other  details  which  need  not  here  be  con- 
sidered in  view  of  the  general  absurdity  of  the  pro- 
posal. Not  even  Andrew  Johnson's  plan,  already  set 
forth,  embodied  more  conspicuous  elements  of  im- 
possibility. The  Northern  States  would  never  have 
consented  to  these  constitutional  provisions.  The 
Southern  States  would  never  have  been  satisfied  with 
them,  because  they  carried  with  them  no  effectual 
provision  for  their  own  enforcement.  It  was  folly 
and  futility,  from  beginning  to  end,  but  at  any  rate 
it  was  patriotic  folly  and  country-loving  futility.  It 
represented  the  dominant  desire  of  the  people  to  find 
some  basis  of  reconciliation  upon  which  the  crumbling 
foundations  of  the  Union  might  be  rebuilt  and 
securely  buttressed. 

The  proposal— absurd  and  impossible  as  it  was — 
was  strongly  supported  both  in  Congress  and  in  the 


The  Birth  of  War  161 

country.  Mr.  Pugh  of  Ohio  expressed  in  the  Senate 
the  opinion  that  it  would  command  the  support  of 
nearly  every  state  in  the  Union,  and  he  pointed  out 
the  fact  that  no  other  proposal  ever  submitted  to  Con- 
gress had  been  supported  by  the  petitions  of  so  great 
a  multitude  of  citizens.  The  conservative  newspaper 
press  passionately  urged  its  adoption,  declaring  it  to 
be  a  measure  which  would  completely  disarm  the  dis- 
union sentiment  on  both  sides,  and  suggesting  to  Mr. 
Seward  that  one  word  from  him  in  its  behalf  would 
make  a  final  end  of  the  fearful  threat  of  war  which 
overshadowed  the  country. 

But  all  these  urgings  were  founded  upon  neglect 
to  consider  the  all-controlling  fact  that  the  conflict 
between  slavery  and  anti-slavery  had  become  actually 
irrepressible,  with  the  added  element  of  what  Charles 
Sumner  called  a  "sacred  animosity." 

There  was  an  active,  aggressive,  anti-slavery  mi-  \ 
nority  at  the  North  whose  members  cared  not  one  pin-    I 
point's  worth  for  the  Union  except  in  so  far  as  they    1 
hoped  to  use  its  power  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  J-^ 
in  any  way  and  upon  any  terms  that  might  be  avail-    / 
able.     They  had  already  declared  their  hostility  to  / 
the  Constitution,  and  the  insertion  of  Mr.  Crittenden's 
amendments  into  that  document  would  have  served 
only  to  intensify  their  hatred  of  it  and  to  stimulate 
their  purpose  to  be  rid  of  it.     On  the  other  hand 
there  was  an  active  and  ceaselessly  aggr.essive  pro- 
slavery  party  at  the  South  whose  members  were  reso- 
lutely bent  upon  the  destruction  of  the  Union  in 
order  that  a  new  Republic  might  be  founded  with 
African  slavery  as  its  corner  stone. 

Ml 


162         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

Between  these  two  radical  parties  there  could  be 
no  peace  and  no  neutral  ground  upon  which  to  nego- 
tiate a  peace.  Each  held  the  Union  in  contempt — 
the  one  because  the  Constitution  protected  slavery, 
the  other  because  it  did  not  adequately  protect  that 
institution.  Each  was  ready  to  sacrifice  the  Union  if 
by  such  sacrifice  it  might  achieve  its  cherished  pur- 
poses. The  one  had  decried  the  Union  and  its  Con- 
stitution as  "a  league  with  death  and  a  covenant 
with  heir'  but  now  clung  to  it  as  a  power  that  might 
be  conveniently  used  for  the  accomplishment  of  cher- 
ished purposes.  The  other  had  despaired  of  its  hope 
of  using  the  Federal  power  further  for  its  own  ends. 
The  Southern  extremists  wished  to  destroy  the  Union 
in  order  that  its  power  might  not  be  used  for  the  ex- 
tirpation of  slavery;  the  Northern  extremists,  who 
had  formerly  been  equally  wiUing  to  "let  the  Union 
slide,"  were  now  eager  for  its  preservation  in  order 
that  its  tremendous  potentialities  of  force  and  com- 
pulsion might  be  employed  in  behalf  of  that  extirpa- 
tion of  slavery  for  which  alone  they  cared. 

Neither  of  these  extreme  parties  in  the  least  degree 
sympathized  with  any  effort  to  preserve  the  Union 
for  its  own  sake  by  measures  of  compromise  and  re- 
conciliation. The  Northern  radicals  wanted  the  South 
to  secede  in  order  that  military  force  might  be  em- 
ployed for  the  compulsory  abolition  of  slavery.  The 
Southern  radicals  wanted  the  Union  dissolved  in 
order  that  slavery  might  be  no  further  interfered 
with. 

Neither  at  the  North  nor  at  the  South  were  the 
radicals  even  yet  in  a  majority.    But  in  both  sections 


The  Birth  of  War  163 

they  held  a  sort  of  balance  of  power  and  in  both  they 
were  in  effect  dominant. 

Under  such  conditions,  with  a  conflict  so  truly  and 
hopelessly  irrepressible  confronting  the  country,  what 
conceivable  hope  was  there  of  a  peaceful  adjustment 
by  means  of  Mr.  Crittenden's  resolutions,  or  by  any 
other  means  that  patriotic  ingenuity  might  devise? 

The  first  gun  had  not  yet  been  fired,  but  there 
was  war  on,  nevertheless,  and  no  paper  resolutions 
however  plausibly  phrased  could  stop  its  progress  to 
the  cannon  and  musket  stage. 

Mr.  Crittenden's  proposal  of  Amendments  to  the 
Constitution  did  not  and  could  not  command  the  two- 
thirds  majority  in  Congress  necessary  to  their  sub- 
mission to  the  several  states  for  ratification.  The  cry 
of  the  Northern  extremists  was  "No  backing  down! 
No  inch  of  concession  to  the  slave  power!  No  sur- 
render of  the  fruits  of  the  victory  we  have  won!" 
The  cry  of  the  Southern  radicals  was:  "There  is  no 
use  in  paper  guarantees!  We  cannot  trust  them! 
Our  enemies  have  not  kept  faith  in  the  past  and  will 
not  keep  faith  in  the  future.  Let  us  abandon  the 
hopeless  effort  for  compromises  that  cannot  be  en- 
forced! Let  us  secede  and  set  up  a  new  republic  of 
our  own!" 

Then  came  Virginia  into  the  breach,  as  she  had  so 
often  come  before.  Standing  as  she  did  for  con- 
servatism and  for  that  Union  which  her  legislature 
had  been  the  first  to  suggest  and  which  her  statesmen 
had  done  so  much  to  bring  into  beneficient  being,  she 
appealed  to  the  sentiment  of  Union  and  patriotism 
throughout  the  land.    Her  legislature  asked  that  all 


164         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

the  states  should  appoint  delegates  to  a  great  peace 
conference  at  Washington,  whose  statesmanlike  duty 
it  should  be  to  devise  and  agree  upon  some  plan  of 
adjustment  by  which  the  danger  that  overshadowed 
the  Republic  might  be  averted.  This  appeal  for 
peace  was  made  on  the  nineteenth  day  of  January, 
1861, — ^more  than  a  fortnight  before  the  date  ap- 
pointed for  the  election  of  a  constitutional  convention 
in  Virginia  to  consider  the  crisis. 

It  is  idle  to  speculate  upon  the  "might  have  been." 
What  actually  happened  was  that  many  of  the  states 
appointed  to  that  peace  conference  delegates  of  rad- 
ical views  and  intemperate  minds,  whose  endeavors 
from  first  to  last  were  ceaselessly  devoted  not  to  the 
task  of  finding  a  way  out,  but  to  the  preconceived 
purpose  of  defeating  the  objects  of  the  peace  con- 
ference. 

In  the  end  a  committee  of  that  body  did  indeed 
recommend  a  policy  practically  identical  with  that 
outlined  in  Mr.  Crittenden's  proposed  amendments 
to  the  Constitution.  But  the  extremists  on  both  sides 
and  especially  the  politicians  on  both  sides  who  sniffed 
preferment  in  the  air  of  radicalism,  were  by  that 
time  so  far  dominant  that  the  proposal  came  to 
nothing.  It  failed  of  acceptance  in  either  house  of 
Congress  when  put  to  a  vote  within  a  brief  time  be- 
fore the  end  of  the  session. 

Nevertheless  Virginia  still  resolutely  held  out 
against  secession  and  five  other  border  states  stood 
by  her  in  that  patriotic  attitude  for  a  month  and  a 
half  more. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  inaugurated  on  the  fourth  of 


The  Birth  of  War  165 

March,  and  straightway  there  set  in  a  rivalry  among 
the  RepubHcan  leaders  for  the  control  of  his  admin- 
istration. Even  those  who  had  most  actively  aided 
in  his  election  gravely  misunderstood  and  seriously 
underestimated  the  character  of  the  man  they  had 
chosen  to  be  president.  They  assumed  from  the  be- 
ginning that  somebody,  other  than  himself,  must 
direct  his  administration,  and  there  was  eager  rivalry 
among  them  to  usurp  that  function. 

They  did  not  know  Abraham  Lincoln  or  realize  his 
intellectual  or  moral  power.  The  extreme  abolition- 
ists beset  him  with  plans  to  make  war  upon  the  seced- 
ing states  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  abolishing 
slavery  in  all  the  states  by  the  high  hand  and  without 
regard  to  that  Constitution  which  they  had  declared 
to  be  a  "league  with  death  and  a  covenant  with  hell." 
To  these  Mr.  Lincoln  replied  that  while  they  were 
free  to  advocate  any  policy  they  pleased,  he  at  least, 
was  bound  by  his  official  oath  to  support  and  maintain 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  In  the  end, 
of  course,  and  when  strenuous  war  was  on  he  did  in- 
deed take  a  different  view.  As  a  "war  measure"  he 
in  the  end  proclaimed  emancipation,  without  even  a 
pretense  of  constitutional  authority  to  do  so,  and 
indeed  in  direct  defiance  of  the  Constitution.  But  at 
least  he  hesitated  to  do  this,  and  waited  before  do- 
ing it  until  the  exigencies  of  an  uncertain  war  seemed 
to  force  that  extreme  measure  upon  him  as  one  of 
national  self-defense. 

At  the  first  he  decided  as  his  fixed  policy  to  assert 
the  authority  of  the  National  Government  in  the  se- 
ceding states,  to  insist  upon  the  enforcement  of  the 


166         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

laws  there,  to  recover  such  government  property  as 
those  states  had  seized  upon  and  to  use  such  force  as 
might  be  required  for  these  ends.  He  clearly  under- 
stood that  there  were  men  by  hundreds  of  thousands 
in  the  North  who  would  stand  by  him  in  an  endeavor 
thus  to  restore  and  maintain  the  Union,  but  who 
would  instantly  and  angrily  desert  him  should  he 
proclaim  a  war  for  the  extirpation  of  slavery  within 
the  states  in  which  that  institution  constitutionally 
existed. 

Accordingly  he  addressed  all  his  endeavors  solely 
to  the  task  of  asserting  and  maintaining  the  national 
authority  in  the  seceding  states. 

Had  all  the  Southern  states  seceded  before  he  as- 
sumed office  his  problem  would  have  been  an  easy  one. 
He  would  simply  have  had  to  call  upon  the  Northern 
states  for  military  forces  sufficient  to  carry  out  this 
program  of  law  enforcement.  But  Virginia  had  not 
seceded,  and  five  other  Southern  states  had  submitted 
their  course  to  Virginia's  decision.  Virginia  was 
anxiously  busying  herself  to  find  some  ground  of 
reconciliation,  some  means  of  accomplishing  that 
preservation  of  the  Union  which  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
declared  to  be  his  own  and  only  object  of  endeavor. 

But  if  Mr.  Lincoln  was  to  enforce  the  laws  in  the 
seceding  states,  and  thus  to  maintain  the  Union,  he 
must  have  troops.  The  little  regular  army  could  not 
furnish  them.  Either  the  militia  must  be  called  out  or 
volunteers  must  be  summoned  for  the  purpose. 

Mr.  Lincoln  called  upon  all  the  states  that  had  not 
yet  seceded  for  their  several  quotas  required  to  make 
up  an  army  of  75,000  men,  with  which  in  effect  to 


The  Birth  of  War  167 

coerce  the  seceding  states  into  submission.  He  de- 
manded that  Virginia  should  furnish  her  quota  of 
troops  for  this  purpose,  and  Virginia,  deeming  the 
purpose  to  be  an  unlawful  and  iniquitous  one,  de- 
cided to  secede — as  she  had  thitherto  resolutely  re- 
fused to  do — rather  than  aid  in  a  coercion  which  all 
her  Union-loving  and  peace-loving  people  regarded 
as  a  wrong,  an  injustice,  an  unconstitutional  and  un- 
lawful aggression  upon  the  rights  of  sovereign  states. 

Virginia  seceded  unwillingly  and  not  at  all  because 
her  people  regarded  Mr.  Lincoln's  election  as  afford- 
ing any  just  ground  for  the  withdrawal  of  any  state 
from  the  Union,  but  solely  because  the  mother  state 
was  forced  to  choose  between  secession  on  the  one 
hand  and  the  lending  of  active  assistance  on  the  other 
to  what  all  Virginians  regarded  as  a  wicked  and  wan- 
ton warfare  by  the  Federal  Government  upon  sov- 
ereign states  for  having  exercised  what  all  Virginians 
held — as  most  Americans  had  previously  and  some- 
times aggressively  held — to  be  their  reserved  rights 
under  the  Constitution. 

It  was  on  the  fifteenth  day  of  April,  1861,  that  Mr. 
Lincoln  called  upon  Virginia  for  her  quota  of  troops 
with  which  to  coerce  the  seceding  states  into  submis- 
sion. It  was  on  the  sixteenth  day  of  April  that  Vir- 
ginia's constitutional  convention,  bravely  resolute  in 
its  love  for  the  Union  and  in  its  antagonism  to  the 
policy  of  secession,  was  confronted  with  the  choice  of 
furnishing  troops  to  aid  in  what  its  members  almost 
unanimously  regarded  as  a  political  crime  or  the  al- 
ternative of  joining  that  secession  movement  from 
which  the  sober  and  conservative  thought  of  Virginia 


168         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

had  so  long  and  so  courageously  held  aloof  in  defiance 
of  criticism  and  in  face  of  contempt  and  contumely. 

To  men  of  high  minds,  holding  these  views,'  there 
could  be  but  one  choice  in  such  a  case.  They  decreed 
that  Virginia  should  prefer  a  secession  which  that 
state  overwhelmingly  disapproved,  to  a  dishonor  which 
no  Virginian  could  contemplate  with  a  satisfied  mind. 
Accordingly  Virginia's  strongly  pro-Union  conven- 
tion reluctantly  adopted  an  ordinance  of  secession, 
on  the  seventeenth  day  of  April,  1861,  not  of  choice 
but  upon  a  conviction  of  necessity.  The  other  border 
states  that  had  waited  for  Virginia's  decision  to 
determine  their  own,  became  at  once  members  of 
the  new  Southern  Confederacy  and  the  question  of 
war  or  peace  was  finally  decided  in  behalf  of  war — 
iwar  to  the  limit  of  possibility,  war  to  the  utmost  end 
of  endurance,  war  to  the  point  of  exhaustion  on  the 
one  side  or  the  other. 

A  wise  prophet,  basing  his  prophecies  upon  the 
patent  facts  of  the  situation,  could  not  have  failed  to 
foretell  the  outcome  of  such  a  war  with  precision  and 
certainty.  The  utmost  that  the  South  could  do — even 
by  "robbing  the  cradle  and  the  grave"  as  was  wittily 
and  sadly  said  at  the  time,  was  to  put  600,000  men 
into  the  field,  first  and  last.  The  North  was  able  to 
enlist  an  aggregate  of  2,778,304,  or,  if  we  reduce  this 
to  a  basis  of  three  years'  service  for  each  man,  the 
Union  enlistments  for  three  full  years  numbered  no 
less  than  2,326,168 — or  nearly  four  times  the  total 
enlistments  in  the  Confederate  army  from  beginning 
to  end  of  the  war.  Yet  the  Confederate  armies  in- 
cluded practically  every  white  man  in  the  South  who 


The  Birth  of  War  169 

was  able  to  bear  arms.  There  was  in  effect  a  levy  en 
masse,  including  the  entire  white  male  population 
from  early  boyhood  to  extreme  old  age. 

Again  the  Federal  Government  had  a  navy  and 
the  Confederates  none.  It  was  certain  from  the  be- 
ginning that  the  Federal  authorities  would  completely 
shut  the  South  in  by  blockading  and  closely  sealing 
every  southern  port.  Thus  the  Federals — as  was  ap- 
parent in  advance — were  destined  to  have  the  whole 
world  to  draw  upon  for  soldiers,  for  supplies,  for 
ammunition,  for  improved  arms  and  for  everything 
else  that  contributes  to  military  strength,  while  the 
South  must  rely  absolutely  upon  itself — ill  armed, 
and  unequipped  with  anything  except  courage,  devo- 
tion and  heroic  fortitude. 

There  were  no  facilities  at  the  South  for  the  manu- 
facture of  arms.  There  was  not  an  armory  in  all 
that  land  that  could  turn  out  a  musket  of  the  pattern 
then  in  use,  not  a  machine  shop  that  could  convert  a 
muzzle-loading  rifle  into  a  breech-loader  or  give  to 
any  gun  so  much  as  a  choke  bore.  There  were  foun- 
dries that  could  cast  iron  cannon  of  an  antique 
pattern,  but  not  one  that  could  make  a  modern  gun. 
There  were  machine  shops — a  very  few — in  which  the 
Northern-made  locomotives  then  in  use  on  Southern 
railroads  could  be  repaired  in  a  small  way,  but  there 
was  not  in  all  the  South  a  shop  in  which  a  useful  loco- 
motive could  be  built.  Nor  were  there  any  car 
builders  who  had  had  experience  in  the  making  of 
rolling  stock  fit  for  service. 

In  brief  the  South  was  an  agricultural  region  ac- 
customed  to    depend   upon   the   North    and    upon 


•170         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

Europe  for  its  mechanical  devices  and  the  outbreak 
of  war  was  clearly  destined  to  be  the  signal  for  the 
shutting  off  of  both  Northern  and  European  supplies. 
Even  in  the  matter  of  medicines — and  greatly  more 
soldiers  die  of  disease  than  of  wounds — the  South 
had  no  adequate  supply  and  no  assured  means  of 
creating  one  for  itself.  Quinine,  calomel  and  opium 
were  scarcely  less  necessary  than  gunpowder  and 
bullets  to  the  conduct  of  military  operations.  Yet 
there  was  nowhere  in  the  South  a  "plant"  that 
could  produce  any  one  of  those  drugs.  Nor  was 
there  anywhere  a  mercury  supply  from  which  calo- 
mel might  be  made.  Early  in  the  war  it  became  im- 
possible to  procure  so  much  as  a  Seidlitz  powder 
in  the  South.  There  was  nowhere  a  factory  that 
could  make  a  scalpel,  to  say  nothing  of  more  ingen- 
iously contrived  surgical  implements.  The  materials 
for  making  gunpowder  were  so  wanting  that  citizens 
were  urged  a  little  later  to  dig  up  the  earthen  floors 
of  their  smoke-houses  and  their  tobacco  barns  and 
were  instructed  in  the  art  of  extracting  the  niter 
from  them.  In  the  towns  women  were  officially  so- 
licited to  save  their  chamber  lye  and  deliver  it  to 
the  authorities  in  order  that  its  chemicals  might 
be  utilized  in  the  creation  of  explosives.  Farmers 
were  by  law  forbidden  to  burn  corn  cobs  in  their 
fire  places  and  required  to  turn  them  over  instead 
to  the  authorities  in  order  that  their  sodas  and  pot- 
ashes might  be  utilized  in  the  manufacture  of  gun- 
powder. Women  were  urged  to  grow  poppies  and 
instructed  in  the  art  of  so  scarring  the  plants  as  to 
secure  the  precious  gum  from  which  opium  could 


The  Birth  of  War  171 

be  made  for  the  relief  of  suffering  in  the  hospitals. 
They  were  taught  also  how  to  harvest  and  stew  dog- 
fennel  in  order  to  secure  a  substitute  for  quinine. 
The  negro  boys  were  set  at  work  to  dig  up  the  roots 
of  the  dogwood,  and  women  were  taught  to  extract 
from  the  bark  of  such  roots  a  bitters  which  served 
as  a  substitute  for  the  unobtainable  quinine. 

In  short,  at  every  point  the  South  was  lamentably 
lacking  in  supplies,  and  the  blockade,  established 
early  in  the  war,  forbade  the  incoming  of  such  things 
as  were  needed  except  at  serious  risk  of  capture  and 
confiscation. 

Even  food  supplies  were  from  the  first  to  the  last 
meager.  The  South  produced  very  little  corn,  pork, 
wheat,  and  the  like,  in  comparison  with  the  production 
of  the  great  northwestern  states  or  in  comparison 
with  the  need  that  was  created  by  the  enlistment  of  all 
the  able-bodied  white  men  of  that  region  in  the  Con- 
federate army. 

Thus  the  South  was  at  a  fearful  disadvantage  from 
the  first;  the  wiser  men  of  the  South  knew  the  fact 
in  advance.  They  had  courage  and  they  had  little 
else.  Their  achievement  in  maintaining  a  strenuous 
war  for  four  years  in  face  of  such  disparities  of  force 
and  resources,  must  always  be  accounted  to  their 
credit  as  brave  and  resourceful  men. 

It  was  certain  from  the  first  that  the  South  must 
be  beaten  in  its  struggle — ^unless  by  dash  and  daring 
it  should  win  at  once,  or  unless,  by  some  remote 
chance,  assistance  should  come  from  without.  The 
chance  of  that  was  very  small  but  it  existed  as  a  factor 
in  the  problem.    The  chief  hope  the  Southern  people 


172         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

had  of  winning  the  war  upon  which  they  entered  with 
courage  and  enthusiasm  was  born  of  the  delusive 
behef  that  the  god  of  battles  awards  victory,  not  to 
the  strong  but  to  the  righteous.  They  devoutly  be- 
lieved that  their  cause  was  righteous,  and,  in  spite 
of  all  the  teachings  of  history,  they  expected  God  to 
interpose  in  some  fashion  to  give  them  the  victory. 
They  believed  themselves  to  be  battling  for  the  same 
right  of  self-government  among  men  that  their  revo- 
lutionary ancestors  had  fought  for,  and  they  refused 
to  recognize  any  disparity  of  resources  between  the 
contending  forces  as  a  sufficient  reason  for  their 
failure  under  the  rule  of  a  just  God  in  whose  reign 
over  human  affairs  they  devoutly  believed. 

They  were  sentimentalists.  They  believed  that 
ideas  rather  than  facts  ruled  the  world  and  its  aiFairs. 
They  had  been  nurtured  upon  the  Bible  and  Scott's 
novels,  and  they  believed  in  both. 

Had  any  prophet  arisen  among  them  who  should 
have  measured  their  resources  against  those  of  their 
adversary,  they  would  have  refused  to  listen  to  his 
prophesyings.  They  would  have  gone  on  believing 
that  they  were  entirely  certain  of  success  and  victory 
by  reason  of  what  seemed  to  them  the  indisputable 
righteousness  of  their  cause. 

There  were  men  among  them  who  rightly  recog- 
nized the  enormous  disparity  between  the  resources 
of  the  ISTorth  and  those  that  the  South  could  command. 
But  such  men  were  few  and  their  counsel  counted  for 
nothing. 

As  for  the  extremists,  they  anticipated  military 
commissions  and  political  preferment  for  themselves. 


The  Birth  of  War  173 

and  they  cared  for  little  else  than  to  occupy  a  conspic- 
uous place  in  public  attention  for  a  little  while.  They 
were  in  spirit  gamblers,  ready  to  stake  everything 
upon  uncertain  chance.  They  wanted  war  for  the 
sake  of  what  war  might  bring  to  them  of  advantage, 
and  they  were  ready  to  stake  everything  upon  the 
hazard  of  their  own  fortune. 

It  was  in  Virginia  mainly  that  there  were  men  of 
soberer  minds,  as  had  been  demonstrated  in  the  Vir- 
ginians' choice  of  men  to  represent  them  in  their  con- 
stitutional convention.  But  even  in  Virginia  there 
were  hotheads  and  fools  a  plenty,  who  believed  that 
a  war  was  to  be  won  by  hurrahs,  and  that  enthusiasm 
was  an  effective  substitute  for  ammunition. 

The  secession  of  Virginia  made  the  war  a  fact  and 
a  necessity.  So  long  as  that  had  been  delayed  there 
had  remained  a  hope  of  reconciliation  and  adjustment 
by  peaceful  devices.  When  that  event  occurred  it 
was  certain  that  the  question  at  issue  must  be  fought 
out  upon  bloody  battlefields. 

The  final  stage  of  the  controversy  had  been 
reached.  The  case  had  been  appealed  to  the  arbitra- 
ment of  steel  and  gunpowder.  Argument  was  at  an 
end  and  brute  force  had  come  in  as  umpire.  It  was 
a  melancholy  spectacle  over  which  the  gods  might 
well  have  wept.  But  men  on  both  sides  greeted  it 
joyously  as  if  it  had  been  a  holiday  occasion. 


BOOK  II 
THE  CONDUCT  OF  THE  WAR 


CHAPTER  XI 

The  Reduction  of  Fort  Sumter 

The  events  that  brought  about  the  Confederate 
War,  the  conditions  and  circumstances  under  which 
it  occurred,  and  the  passions  and  pre j  udices  which  in- 
spired that  bloody  and  most  lamentable  conflict  have 
been  sufficiently  and  quite  truthfully  set  forth,  the 
author  believes,  in  the  preceding  chapters  of  this  work. 
He  has  sought  to  show  them  forth  without  prejudice, 
and  in  a  spirit  of  the  utmost  candor  and  fairness. 
It  is  the  function  of  the  historian  to  record  facts,  not 
to  complain  of  them;  to  describe  conditions,  not  to 
criticize  them. 

After  nearly  half  a  century  of  study  it  is  the  firm 
conviction  of  the  present  historian  that  the  Confeder- 
ate war  was  a  necessary  and  unescapable  result  of 
historic  conditions;  that  nobody  in  particular  was  to 
blame  for  it,  because  there  was  nobody  who  could  have 
prevented  or  averted  it.  History  and  circumstance 
had  combined  to  compel  its  occurrence,  and  for  its  oc- 
currence no  person  and  no  party  was  in  any  account- 
able way  responsible.  It  occurred  because  the  logic 
of  circumstance  compelled  it,  and  it  was  fought  out 
with  conscience  upon  both  sides. 

Incidentally  there  were  wrongs  done  in  its  conduct, 
quite  as  a  matter  of  course.  He  must  be  a  stupid 
reader  of  history  who  does  not  understand  that  the 

1-12  177 


178         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

doing  of  wrong  is  inevitable  in  every  great  historical 
event.  But  he  must  also  be  a  very  stupid  and  preju- 
diced reader  of  history  who  can  contemplate  the  story 
of  the  Confederate  war  without  realizing  that  on  the 
one  side  and  on  the  other  conscience  was  the  inspiring 
motive  of  it.  He  must  be  dull  indeed  who  fails  to 
see  that  devotion  had  its  part  to  play  on  both  sides 
and  that  on  both  sides  it  played  it  well,  to  the  ever- 
lasting glory  of  the  American  name. 

The  story  of  the  war  on  the  one  side,  and  on  the 
other,  is  a  story  of  American  heroism  in  courage  and 
in  endurance,  in  battle  and  in  camp,  in  action  and 
in  the  patient  submission  to  hardship,  in  dash  and  in 
defeat,  in  assault  and  in  retreat.  The  purpose  of  the 
succeeding  chapters  is  to  tell  that  story  without  pas- 
sion or  prejudice,  without  fear  or  favor,  and  with  no 
flinching  from  the  truth,  whithersoever  it  may  lead. 

So  far  as  actual  fighting  was  concerned,  the  war 
began  with  the  bombardment  of  Fort  Sumter,  in 
Charleston  Harbor  on  the  morning  of  April  12, 1861. 

When  President  Lincoln  was  inaugurated,  the 
total  military  force  at  command  of  the  Government 
amounted  to  a  mere  handful  of  men,  and  these  were 
mainly  occupied  with  the  duty  of  garrisoning  fron- 
tier posts  and  maintaining  the  subjection  of  the 
Indians.  So  far  as  eastern  positions  were  concerned 
there  were  scarcely  enough  men  in  the  forts  to  take 
care  of  the  government  property  there  and  perform 
a  perfunctory  guard  duty. 

The  total  force  in  Charleston  Harbor  consisted  of 
seventy  men  under  command  of  Major  Robert  An- 
derson.   This  force  occupied  Fort  Moultrie,  at  that 


The  Reduction  of  Fort  Sumter  179 

time  an  indefensible  position  by  reason  of  the  un- 
finished character  of  its  fortifications  and  the  ease  of 
approach  to  it  from  the  land  side. 

As  a  matter  of  military  prudence  and  under  a 
threat  of  war,  Major  Anderson  decided  to  transfer 
his  little  force  to  the  far  more  defensible  and,  to 
Charleston,  the  far  more  threatening  work,  Fort 
Sumter.  This  he  did  in  the  early  morning  of  Decem- 
ber 26,  1860. 

This  military  transfer  of  force  from  an  indefensible 
to  a  defensible  work,  was  construed  by  the  Confeder- 
ates to  be  a  distinct  violation  of  the  agreement  which 
had  been  made  by  the  Buchanan  administration,  to 
the  general  effect  that,  pending  final  negotiations, 
there  should  be  no  change  made  in  the  military  situ- 
ation at  any  point  in  the  South. 

Major  Anderson's  transfer  of  his  little  force  from 
Fort  Moultrie,  where  it  might  easily  have  been  cap- 
tured from  the  land  side  to  the  sea-girt  fortress  in 
the  middle  of  the  harbor,  was  held  to  be  a  violation 
of  this  compact.  Without  going  into  the  lawyers' 
quibbles  concerning  that  question,  let  us  recognize 
the  situation  and  relate  the  events  that  grew  out  of  it. 

The  Confederates,  under  the  skilled  direction  of 
General  Beauregard,  a  little  later  began  the  construc- 
tion of  works  and  the  emplacement  of  guns  that 
should  completely  command  Fort  Sumter.  There 
was  in  all  this  a  good  deal  of  the  "fuss  and  feathers" 
that  plays  so  large  a  part  in  the  beginning  of  every 
war  made  by  a  people  wholly  unused  to  military 
operations.  With  a  field  battery  and  one  columbiad 
or  one  Dahlgren  gun,  General  Beauregard  could 


180         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

easily  have  reduced  Fort  Sumter  on  any  one  of  the 
long  days  of  waiting  and  preparation.  Or,  with 
a  single  battalion  of  determined  men  he  could  have 
taken  it  by  assault  in  spite  of  such  resistance  as  its 
feeble  defending  force  could  have  offered.  But  those 
were  the  days  of  spectacular  effects.  The  "pomp 
and  circumstance  of  glorious  war"  were  necessary 
agents  in  the  work  of  so  exciting  the  southern  mind 
as  to  overcome  the  reluctance  of  Virginia,  NortH 
Carolina,  Tennessee,  Arkansas,  Kentucky  and  Mis- 
souri to  join  the  seceding  column.  So  pomp  and  cir- 
cumstance were  freely  invoked. 

General  Beauregard's  preparations  for  the  reduc- 
tion of  a  brick  fort  which  must  quickly  crumble  under 
an  efficient  artillery  fire,  defended  as  it  was  by  less 
than  a  single  company  of  men,  were  such  as  might 
have  been  made  for  the  reduction  of  some  fortress 
like  that  at  Gibraltar,  or  the  elaborate  works  in  the 
Bermuda  Islands. 

But  it  was  not  the  purpose  of  either  side  to  bring 
on  the  inevitable  war  as  yet.  The  quibbling  lawyers 
and  phrase-mongering  diplomatists  were  busy  at 
work  in  wordy  fence,  each  trying  to  force  upon  the 
other  the  technical  responsibility  of  beginning  the 
war  by  some  act  of  forcible  aggression. 

On  both  sides  every  nerve  was  strained  to  make 
military  preparations,  precisely  as  if  the  coming  of 
war  had  been  recognized  as  certain — as  in  fact  it 
was — while  on  both  sides  there  was  a  jealously  main- 
tained pretense  of  entirely  peaceful  purposes.  The 
organization  of  military  forces  on  either  side  was 
easily  explainable  and  excusable  upon  the  plea  of 


The  Reduction  of  Fort  Sumter  181 

prudence  and  of  a  necessary  preparation  for  con- 
ceivably possible  emergencies,  and  on  both  sides  these 
preparations  for  war  served  to  arouse  the  fighting 
instincts  of  the  populace  and  thus  to  make  war  more 
and  more  obviously  inevitable. 

During  the  first  forty  days  or  so  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
administration  there  was  nothing  done  that  was  not 
in  consonance  with  the  Buchanan  program  of  peace 
and  waiting.  Nothing  was  undertaken  of  a  more 
positive  character  than  the  acts  of  the  Buchanan  rule. 
So  far  as  proclamations  and  professions  and  pledges 
of  peaceful  purpose  were  concerned  there  was  no 
change  either  for  better  or  for  worse. 

In  his  inaugural  address  Mr.  Lincoln  outlined  his 
policy  by  saying  of  the  administration  that  it  aimed 
only  at  the  preservation  of  the  Union.  He  said,  "It 
will  constitutionally  maintain  and  defend  itself.  In 
doing  this  there  need  be  no  bloodshed  or  violence, 
and  there  shall  be  none  unless  it  is  forced  upon  the 
national  authority.  The  power  confided  to  me  will 
be  used  to  hold,  occupy,  and  possess  the  property  and 
places  belonging  to  the  Government,  and  collect  the 
duties  and  imposts;  but  beyond  what  may  be  neces- 
sary for  these  objects,  there  will  be  no  invasion,  no 
using  of  force  against  or  among  people  anywhere. 
In  your  hands,  my  dissatisfied  fellow  countrymen, 
and  not  in  mine,  is  the  momentous  issue  of  civil 
war.  The  Government  will  not  assail  you.  You  can 
have  no  conflict  without  being  yourselves  the  ag- 
gressors." 

All  this  was  very  specious  and  to  the  Northern 
mind  convincing,  but  it  ignored  the  fundamental  fact 


182         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

that  the  seceding  states  claimed  a  constitutional  right 
to  secede  and  that  having  exercised  that  asserted 
right,  they  denied  the  right  of  the  United  States  Gov- 
ernment to  "hold,  occupy  and  possess,"  forts,  arsenals 
or  custom  houses  within  their  territory,  or  within  that 
territory  to  "collect  duties  and  imposts."  The  very 
vitals  of  the  question  at  issue  were  involved  in  that 
assumption  of  right  on  the  part  of  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment to  impose  and  enforce  laws  and  imposts,  and 
to  assert  and  maintain  rights  of  property  possession 
within  the  territories  of  states  that  had,  as  they  reso- 
lutely contended,  taken  themselves  out  of  the  Union 
by  rigidly  constitutional  methods. 

It  is  not  purposed  here  idly  and  uselessly  to  discuss 
this  constitutional  question.  It  is  only  intended  to 
show  how  it  presented  itself  to  the  minds  of  men  on 
the  one  side  and  upon  the  other.  To  the  Northern 
mind,  which  had  forgotten  its  own  pleas  for  disunion 
and  its  own  claims  of  the  right  of  any  state  to  secede, 
Mr.  Lincoln's  declared  purpose  seemed  an  altogether 
righteous  and  reasonable  proposal  of  governmental 
activity  and  necessary  national  self-assertion.  To 
the  Southern  mind,  in  which  the  traditional  doctrine 
survived  of  the  right  of  any  state  to  secede  at  will,  it 
seemed  a  proposal  of  intolerable  aggression. 

If  the  seceding  states  had  acted  within  their  con- 
stitutional right  in  seceding,  then  they  were  no  longer 
within  the  dominion  or  in  any  remotest  way  subject 
to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States.  Any  at- 
tempt on  the  part  of  that  government  to  exercise 
jurisdiction  or  to  "collect  duties  and  imposts"  within 
their  borders  was  a  trespass  upon  their  independence. 


The  Reduction  of  Fort  Sumter  183 

an  affront  to  their  dignity,  an  invasion  of  their  sov- 
ereignty, in  brief  an  act  of  direct  war  upon  them. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  inaugural  address,  as  the  Southern- 
ers held,  begged  the  whole  question  at  issue.  It 
assumed  that  secession  was  an  unconstitutional  nullity 
and  that  the  seceding  states  were  still  in  the  Union 
and  still  subject  to  its  laws,  its  imposts  and  its  duties. 
That  was  the  whole  matter  in  dispute.  If  that 
assumption  was  correct  then  it  was  permitted  to  him 
to  use  any  force  he  might  see  fit  to  employ  with  which 
to  compel  them  to  obedience.  But  if  the  assumption 
was  incorrect — if  those  seceding  states  had  in  fact 
constitutionally  withdrawn  from  the  Union,  as  they 
contended  that  they  had  done — then  he  had  no  more 
right  to  exercise  authority,  to  enforce  laws,  to  possess 
"places  and  property"  or  to  "collect  duties  and  im- 
posts" within  their  boundaries  than  he  had  to  do  the 
same  within  the  domains  of  Britain,  France  or  Ger- 
many. This  was  the  very  marrow  of  the  question  at 
issue. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  words  spoken  in  his  inaugural 
address  w^ere  meant  to  be  placative  to  Southern  sen- 
timent and  to  minister  to  that  reconciliation  which 
from  beginning  to  end  was  the  sincerest  desire  of  his 
soul.  But  they  were  based  upon  a  seemingly  total 
misconception.  They  constituted  a  refusal  to  recog- 
nize what  the  South  held  to  be  a  fundamental  fact. 
Mr.  Lincoln's  placative  words  did  not  placate  for  the 
reason  that  they  completely  ignored  the  Southern 
contention.  They  became  instead,  directly  offensive 
as  an  assertion  of  the  wrongfulness  c^  secession,  and 
its  utter  lack  of  constitutional  authority. 


184         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

His  words,  the  men  of  the  South  thought,  claimed 
either  too  much  or  greatly  too  little. 

All  this  was  only  a  part  and  a  small  part  of  the 
fencing  by  which  the  men  in  high  place  on  either  side 
sought  in  that  troubled  time  to  shift,  each  to  the  oth- 
ers' shoulders,  responsibility  for  the  actual  and  brutal 
beginning  of  a  war  which  was  clearly  inevitable,  and 
the  occurrence  of  which  had  been  made  steadily  more 
and  more  a  necessity  by  the  events  of  history  during 
generations  past. 

In  the  meanwhile  both  sides  were  making  every 
possible  preparation  for  a  war  that  had  not  been 
declared,  a  war  that  both  professed  to  regard  as 
unnecessary,  a  war  for  the  outbreak  of  which  each 
was  determined  that  the  other  and  not  itself  should 
bear  all  the  blame. 

The  Congress  at  Washington  had  adjourned  at  the 
beginning  of  March  without  making  any  warlike 
appropriations  whatsoever.  Forty  days  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  administration  had  passed  without  the  call- 
ing of  a  regiment  or  a  company  or  even  a  soldier  into 
the  field.  Congress  had  indeed  passed  a  resolution 
declaring  its  purpose  to  avoid  war  and  its  conviction 
that  every  possible  concession  should  be  made  by 
Northern  sentiment  in  avoidance  of  that  terrible 
catastrophe. 

It  had  resolved: 

"That  the  existing  discontents  among  the  Southern 
people,  and  the  growing  hostility  to  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment among  them,  are  greatly  to  be  regretted;  and 
that  whether  such  discontents  and  hostility  are  with- 
out just  cause  or  not,  any  reasonable  proper  and 


The  Reduction  of  Fort  Sumter  185 

constitutional  remedies  and  additional  and  more 
specific  guarantees  of  their  peculiar  rights  and  inter- 
ests, as  recognized  by  the  Constitution,  necessary  to 
preserve  the  peace  of  the  country  and  the  perpetuity 
of  the  Union,  should  be  promptly  and  cheerfully 
granted." 

But  how  much  did  this  resolution  signify?  It  was 
passed  by  more  than  a  two-thirds  majority  of  a  rump 
House  of  Representatives  after  the  Southern  mem- 
bers of  that  body  had  withdrawn  from  it.  It  there- 
fore seemed  to  represent  Northern  and  Republican 
sentiment.  But  the  Senate  rejected  it  and  it  came  to 
nothing.  It  was  a  resolve  that  concessions  should  be 
made  and  that  new  guarantees  should  be  given  in  the 
interest  of  the  Union's  preservation.  But,  the  South- 
erners pointed  out,  the  concessions  were  not  made 
and  the  new  guarantees  were  not  given. 

It  was  impossible,  in  fact,  that  these  things  should 
be  done.  It  was  easy  for  Congress  to  resolve  that 
"any  reasonable,  proper  and  constitutional  remedies 
and  additional  and  more  specific  guarantees"  should 
be  given,  but  quite  another  thing  to  secure  the  execu- 
tion of  such  a  program.  One  house  of  Congress 
vetoed  the  action  of  the  other  on  every  such  resolution 
and  both  refused  to  put  the  guarantees  into  legal 
form.  Northern  sentiment  saw  and  resented  in  every 
such  proposition  a  suggestion  of  still  further  conces- 
sion to  that  slave  power  which  Northern  sentiment 
had  come  to  abhor  with  all  the  loathing  that  is  possible 
to  the  human  mind,  and  Northern  sentiment  would 
have  no  part  or  lot  in  concession  to  a  system  which 
under  compulsion  of  the  Constitution  it  might  toler- 


186         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

ate  but  to  the  perpetuation  of  which  it  would  on  no 
account  lend  a  hand. 

On  the  other  side  the  extremists  of  the  South  asked 
for  no  further  guarantees  and  trusted  none  that 
might  be  offered.  They  contended  that  the  guar- 
antees of  the  Constitution  itself  had  been  nullified  by 
the  laws  of  the  Northern  States;  that  every  compro- 
mise had  been  broken ;  that,  as  they  insisted,  Northern 
sentiment  had  openly  and  distinctly  approved  of 
servile  insurrection,  with  all  the  horror  that  it  must 
imply,  as  a  means  of  abolishing  slavery;  and  that 
there  was  no  further  hope  of  reconciliation  by  virtue 
of  paper  guarantees  which  the  Federal  Government 
had  no  adequate  power  to  enforce. 

The  issue  had,  in  fact,  been  made  up  and  all 
attempts  at  compromise  were  futile  folly.  The  war 
to  which  the  country's  history  and  politics  for  half  a 
century  past  had  been  leading  had  at  last  come  and 
the  only  real  question  that  remained  to  be  settled  was 
that  of  who  should  begin  the  actual  fighting.  That 
iietail  was  of  no  real  importance. 

The  South  bore  its  part  in  all  this  by-play  and 
coquetry  of  endeavors  at  reconciliation.  It  sent  dis- 
tinguished men  as  delegates  to  plead  for  peace  at 
Washington,  either,  as  some  of  them  urged,  upon 
some  basis  of  compromise  or,  as  others  insisted,  upon 
a  governmental  recognition  of  secession  as  a  right 
and  a  fact,  the  recognition  of  which  would  indeed 
have  furnished  a  peaceful  remedy  for  ills  otherwise 
irremediable,  an  easy  and  peaceful  way  out  of  a 
controversy  that  otherwise  threatened  a  savage, 
brutal  and  peculiarly  devastating  war.     But  that 


The  Reduction  of  Fort  Sumter  187 

remedy  was  obviously  and  absurdly  impossible  of 
adoption  in  the  circumstances  then  existing. 

Neither  side  was  in  the  least  degree  disposed  to 
accept  or  even  seriously  to  consider  the  peace  pro- 
posals of  the  other.  Neither  being  willing  to  yield  a 
single  item  of  its  contention,  there  was  no  ground  or 
chance  of  compromise.  It  was  clearly  understood 
upon  both  sides  that  war  was  presently  to  come. 

On  both  sides  there  was  an  active  sharpening  of 
swords  and  a  diligent  rubbing  up  of  guns  that  might 
prove  serviceable  in  war. 

At  the  South  practically  all  the  able-bodied  young 
men  were  enlisted  in  what  were  then  called  "volunteer 
companies,"  though  it  did  not  yet  appear  in  what 
cause  they  were  supposed  to  be  volunteering.  They 
were  drilled  and  disciplined  and  made  into  something 
at  least  remotely  resembling  soldiers.  Their  famil- 
iarity with  firearms  and  their  habits  of  strenuous 
outdoor  life  fitted  them  for  comparatively  easy  trans- 
formation into  troops. 

At  the  North  there  was  an  equally  active  prepara- 
tion for  war.  Among  other  warlike  initiatives  a 
fleet  was  preparing  for  the  relief  of  Fort  Sumter  or 
at  the  least  for  a  threatening  manifestation  ofi^ 
Charleston  harbor.  It  had  every  equipment — even  to 
surf  boats  for  use  in  enforced  landings — that  such  a 
fleet  could  require,  and  it  presently  sailed.  Neither 
mail  nor  telegraphic  communication  between  the 
North  and  the  South  had  as  yet  been  interfered  with, 
and  so  every  detail  of  preparation  made  upon  either 
side  was  instantly  reported  to  the  other. 

These  were  the   conditions   in  which  the  actual 


188         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

struggle  approached.  When  on  the  night  after 
Christmas  Major  Anderson  transferred  his  little 
handful  of  men  under  cover  of  darkness  from  the 
hopelessly  indefensible  works  of  Fort  Moultrie  to  the 
seemingly  much  stronger  position  at  Fort  Sumter, 
the  Confederates  clamorously  contended  that  the 
change  was  a  violation  of  the  Buchanan  administra- 
tion's promise  to  maintain  the  military  status  quo. 
They  seized  upon  the  occurrence  as  an  excuse  for 
that  erection  of  batteries  around  the  harbor  which  has 
already  been  spoken  of.  In  the  meanwhile  they 
courteously  extended  the  hospitalities  of  the  city  of 
Charleston  to  Major  Anderson,  freely  permitting 
him  to  send  men  ashore  and  to  supply  himself  in  the 
Charleston  markets  with  fresh  vegetables,  butter, 
eggs,  milk  and  whatever  else  he  needed  for  the  com- 
fort of  his  command. 

But  when  an  attempt  was  made  during  the 
Buchanan  administration  to  provision  Fort  Sumter 
for  a  siege,  the  steamer  Star  of  the  West,  which 
carried  the  supplies,  was  forbidden  to  approach  the 
fort  and  compelled  to  put  again  to  sea. 

Then  followed  negotiations  which  were  marked  by 
all  that  suave  and  gentle  courtesy  which  character- 
izes the  preliminary  communications  between  duelists 
who  intend  presently  to  shoot  one  another. 

The  state  of  South  Carolina,  claiming  to  be  an 
independent  sovereignty  and  a  member  of  a  new  and 
sovereign  confederacy,  courteously  asked  the  United 
States  Government  to  withdraw  its  military  force 
from  Charleston  Harbor.    The  state  represented  that 


The  Reduction  of  Fort  Sumter  189 

the  military  occupation  of  a  fortress  within  its  do- 
main by  another  sovereign  power  was  derogatory  to 
the  dignity  and  independence  of  the  state.  It  cour- 
teously  offered  adequate  compensation  to  the  United 
States  for  any  property  that  might  be  involved  in  the 
change  but  politely  insisted  that  the  United  States 
Government  should  cease  to  trespass  upon  the  dignity 
of  a  sister  nation. 

To  all  this  the  Buchanan  administration  with  equal 
courtesy  replied,  declining  to  recognize  in  South 
Carolina  the  status  it  claimed  as  an  independent 
state,  but  seemingly  at  least  promising  the  early 
evacuation  of  Fort  Sumter. 

All  this  was  "play  for  position"  on  both  sides  and 
it  produced  the  desired  effect.  It  put  South  Carolina 
and  the  seceding  states  "right  upon  the  record." 
That  is  to  say,  it  enabled  them  to  avoid  even  the 
appearance  of  recognizing  the  existence  of  Federal 
authority  within  their  borders  and  on  the  other  hand 
it  gave  to  the  more  or  less  friendly  administration  of 
Mr.  Buchanan  the  opportunity  it  desired  to  finish  its 
term  without  armed  conflict  and  without  the  necessity 
of  assuming  any  positive  and  pronounced  attitude 
toward  secession. 

But  even  after  Mr.  Lincoln  came  into  office  the 
clash  of  arms  was  postponed.  Neither  side  was  as 
yet  ready  for  it,  and  each  earnestly  desired  to  throw 
upon  the  other  the  responsibility  of  precipitating  a 
conflict  which  was  clearly  inevitable  and  for  which 
each  must  account  as  best  it  could  to  that  "opinion 
of  mankind"  to  which  the  American  Declaration  of 


190         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

Independence  had  been  reverently  addressed  as  an 
act  of  "decent  respect." 

So  for  forty  days  or  so  after  Mr.  Lincoln  assumed 
office  there  was  nothing  done,  except  in  the  way  of 
preparation  for  emergencies.  In  the  meanwhile  Vir- 
ginia still  held  aloof  from  the  secession  movement 
and  five  other  border  states — the  chief  sources  of  that 
military  strength  which  resides  in  a  food  supply — 
were  waiting  for  the  word  from  the  mother  state. 

It  began  to  be  understood  in  South  Carolina  that 
something  must  be  done  to  compel  Virginia  to  take 
her  stand  one  way  or  the  other.  There  was  little  if 
any  doubt  that  upon  the  abstract  right  of  any  state 
to  secede,  Virginia  stood  firmly  with  the  South.  But 
her  protest  was  resolute  against  the  contention  that 
secession  was  at  that  time  either  necessary  or  politic. 
It  was  necessary,  therefore,  to  "force  Virginia's 
hand,"  as  whist  players  say,  to  do  something  which 
might  leave  to  that  state  no  choice  but  that  between 
secession  on  her  own  part  and  consent,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  the  doctrine  that  the  National  Government 
was  possessed  of  a  right  to  coerce,  and  by  military 
force  to  subdue,  states  that  had  assumed  to  act  upon 
what  they  claimed  to  be  and  what  Virginia  freely 
recognized  as  the  right  of  each  state  to  withdraw 
from  the  Union  at  its  own  good  pleasure.  It  was 
plain  that  the  war  must  be  hurried  into  being  if  the 
new  Confederacy,  composed  exclusively  of  the  cotton 
states,  was  to  ally  Virginia  and  the  other  food-produc- 
ing states  of  the  South  with  itself  and  thus  secure 
any  hope  or  even  any  chance  of  success  in  its  effort 
to  maintain  itself. 


The  Reduction  of  Fort  Sumter  191 

Accordingly  General  Beauregard,  who  was  in  com- 
mand at  Charleston,  was  ordered  to  demand  the  sur- 
render of  Fort  Sumter,  and  upon  refusal  to  reduce 
that  work.  This  was  a  ridiculously  easy  task.  But 
its  execution  was  a  thing  of  momentous  consequence. 

Major  Anderson,  who  commanded  the  fort  with 
its  mere  handful  of  men,  was  himself  a  man  of  South- 
ern extraction,  as  were  Farragut,  George  H.  Thomas, 
Winfield  Scott  and  even  Lincoln  himself.  But 
Anderson  was  a  soldier  in  the  United  States  Army 
and  while  he  freely  declared  that  his  heart  was  not 
in  a  war  against  the  South,  he  had  no  thought  of 
failing  in  his  soldierly  duty. 

When  on  the  eleventh  of  April,  1861,  he  was  sum- 
moned to  surrender,  he  refused,  as  it  became  a  brave 
officer  to  do.  He  knew  perfectly  well  that  Beaure- 
gard had  force  enough  and  cannon  enough  and  am- 
munition enough  to  reduce  a  dozen  such  forts  as  that 
which  he  commanded,  but  in  that  spfrit  which 
throughout  the  war  animated  every  good  soldier  of 
whatever  rank  in  both  armies,  he  refused  to  yield  until 
such  time  as  physical  force  should  overcome  his 
powers  of  resistance  and  compel  his  surrender. 
There  was  a  relieving  fleet  in  the  offing,  but,  though 
it  drew  near  enough  during  the  action  for  Major 
Anderson  to  salute  it,  it  rendered  him  no  assistance 
and  indeed  made  no  attempt  to  do  so. 

Beauregard  opened  fire  upon  the  fort  at  4 :20  a.m. 
on  the  twelfth  of  April,  from  batteries  located  at 
every  available  range  point.  The  unfitness  of  the 
antiquated  masonry  work  to  endure  a  bombardment 
was  quickly  and,  to  Major  Anderson,  disastrously 


192         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

demonstrated,  but  in  spite  of  all  he  heroically  held 
out  until  on  the  next  day  his  men  were  literally  driven 
from  their  guns  by  the  smoke  of  the  burning  quarters 
within  the  fortification.  Unable  to  make  further 
resistance  and  obviously  hopeless  of  assistance  even 
from  that  fleet  in  the  offing  which  had  been  elabor- 
ately equipped  and  sent  to  effect  his  reinforcement 
and  rescue,  he  at  last  capitulated. 

He  was  permitted  to  salute  his  flag  before  lowering 
it,  to  march  his  command  out  of  the  fort  with  military 
honors,  and  to  sail  North  with  his  men. 

Those  were  the  mild-mannered,  courteous,  draw- 
ing-room days  of  war.  The  butchery  and  brutality 
were  to  come  later.  Nobody  had  been  killed  by  the 
fire  of  either  side,  and  nobody  wounded.  The  cour- 
tesy which  had  marked  all  relations  between  Major 
Anderson  and  the  Carolinians  was  maintained  to  the 
end.  Major  Anderson  left  Charleston  as  any  hon- 
ored guest  might  have  left  a  hospitable  mansion  in 
Charleston  Neck  after  entertainment,  with  the  good 
wishes,  the  friendship,  and  the  godspeed  of  his  hosts. 
Nothing  could  have  been  pleasanter  or  more  exquis- 
itely courteous  than  this  encounter  and  this  parting. 
But  it  was  the  preface  to  a  war  which  sent  brave  men 
by  scores  of  thousands  to  their  graves,  desolated 
thousands  of  homes.  North  and  South,  made  widows 
of  loving  wives  and  orphans  of  unoffending  children. 

So  far  as  the  direct  effect  of  the  spectacular  but 
bloodless  bombardment  of  Fort  Sumter  was  con- 
cerned it  failed  of  its  purpose.  Even  such  an  event 
did  not  prompt  the  Virginia  convention,  as  had  been 
hoped  and  confidently  anticipated,  to  adopt  an  ordi- 


The  Reduction  of  'Fort  Sumter  193 

nance  of  secession.  On  the  day  after  news  of  it  was 
received  in  Richmond  the  representatives  of  the 
mother  state  stood  as  resolutely  as  ever  in  opposition 
to  a  secession  program,  which  they  deemed  at  once 
impolitic  and  unjustified  by  anything  in  the  situation 
of  affairs. 

But  the  bombardment  accomplished  its  intended 
effect  by  indirection.  It  gave  Mr.  Lincoln  occasion 
to  call  for  a  volunteer  army  with  which  to  meet  what 
had  thus  assumed  the  character  of  a  war  upon  the 
United  States.  As  has  been  already  related  he  called 
for  seventy-five  thousand  men  and  demanded  of  Vir- 
ginia that  she  should  furnish  her  proportional  part  of 
that  force.  After  many  weeks  of  resolute  resistance 
to  what  the  Virginians  regarded  as  a  policy  of 
quixotic  folly  and  certain  destruction,  the  Virginia 
convention  on  the  seventeenth  of  April,  1861,  adopted 
an  ordinance  of  secession.  From  that  hour  war  was 
on  in  earnest,  as  both  sides  quite  clearly  understood. 


M3 


CHAPTER  XII 

The  Attitude  of  the  Border  States 

With  the  secession  of  Virginia  on  the  seventeenth 
of  April,  1861,  there  came  a  final  end  to  all  hope  of 
finding  a  way  out.  The  active  border  states  did  not 
immediately  declare  their  secession  indeed,  but  that 
was  a  foregone  conclusion  so  far  as  Arkansas,  North 
Carolina  and  Tennessee  were  concerned,  and  military 
proceedings  did  not  wait  for  the  formal  act.  That 
came  on  the  sixth  of  May,  in  Arkansas,  on  the  twen- 
tieth of  May  in  North  Carolina,  and  on  the  eighth  of 
June  in  Tennessee.  Kentucky  and  Missouri  were  so 
divided  in  sentiment  that  no  united  action  for  or 
against  the  Union  could  be  secured. 

Kentucky  officially  assumed  an  attitude  of  neu- 
trality to  which  neither  side  paid  the  smallest  atten- 
tion then  or  later.  That  indeed  was  the  most 
impossible  of  all  conceivable  attitudes.  It  assumed 
to  the  state  all  the  independent  right  of  action  that 
secession  itself  implied,  without  asserting  a  claim  to 
the  right  of  secession.  It  proclaimed  Kentucky  to  be 
so  far  out  of  the  Union  as  to  demand  respect  for  its 
neutrality  and  so  far  in  the  Union  as  to  exercise  its 
full  voice  in  Congress.  It  warned  the  armies  of  both 
sides  to  avoid  trespass  upon  Kentucky's  territory, 
a  warning  which,  if  Kentucky  had  undertaken  to  en- 
force, it  would  have  involved  that  state  in  immediate 

194 


Attitude  of  the  Border  States  195 

war  with  both  the  combatants  at  one  and  the  same 
time.  The  thing  was  ridiculous  from  the  beginning, 
absurd  in  conception  and  a  ludicrous  failure  in  execu- 
tion. There  was  later  a  pretense  of  secession  by  a 
so-called  convention  in  that  state,  but  it  was  not 
taken  seriously  on  either  side,  and  in  the  end  the  state 
furnished  volunteers  to  both  the  contending  armies 
in  substantially  equal  numbers. 

Tennessee  did  much  the  same  thing  but  in  a  difFer- 
;ent  fashion.  That  state's  adoption  of  an  ordinance 
of  secession  was  quite  regular  in  form.  It  had  all  the 
validity  that  the  like  ordinance  adopted  by  any  other 
state  had  or  could  have.  But  it  did  not  and  could  not 
command  the  obedience  of  Tennessee's  people  in  any- 
thing like  the  degree  in  which  secession  ordinances  in 
other  states  had  commanded  the  obedience  of  the  peo- 
ple of  those  states.  The  advocates  of  secession  had 
secured  a  majority  vote  in  Tennessee,  but  it  was  not 
a  very  pronounced  majority.  Still  more  important, 
the  division  of  sentiment  there  was  mainly  geo- 
graphical. In  the  mountainous  eastern  part  of  the 
state  and  in  the  adjacent  mountains  of  North  Caro- 
lina where  slavery  scarcely  at  all  existed  and  where 
little  mountain  farms  and  hunters'  log  cabins  stood 
in  the  place  of  plantations  and  stately  mansions,  the 
sentiment  was  overwhelmingly  in  favor  of  the  Union. 
This  was  perhaps  scarcely  more  largely  due  to  a  feel- 
ing of  loyalty  to  the  Union,  though  that  was  strong, 
than  to  a  still  more  active  sentiment  of  hostility  and 
antagonism  to  the  wealth  and  social  pretensions  of 
the  cotton  and  tobacco  planters  whose  more  fruitful 
fields  lay  farther  to  the  west. 


196         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

The  often  illiterate  but  shrewdly  intelligent  moun- 
taineers, to  whom  education  had  offered  few  and  very 
meager  advantages  and  with  whom  fortune  had  dealt 
rather  harshly,  were  very  naturally  jealous  of  their 
better  educated,  better  fed,  and  altogether  more  pros- 
perous neighbors.  It  is  hard  for  the  man  who 
trudges  afoot  or  rides  astride  an  underfed  mule  for 
which  his  forage  supply  is  scant,  to  entertain  kindly 
feelings  toward  the  man  who  goes  about  in  his  car- 
riage drawn  by  sleek  and  negro-groomed  horses.^  It 
is  not  easy  for  the  man  who  houses  his  family  in  a 
mud-daubed  log  hut  and  feeds  his  half -clad  wife  and 
children  upon  corn  pone  and  an  often  uncertain  ration 
of  bacon  or  salt  pork,  to  avoid  sentiments  of  discon- 
tent when  he  realizes  how  much  easier  and  more 
luxurious  is  the  lot  of  those  who  "wear  purple  and 
fine  Hnen  and  fare  sumptuously  every  day." 

So,  in  the  mountain  regions  of  Tennessee,  among 
the  stalwart  six-footers  who  were  inured  to  hardship, 
and  who  knew  all  there  was  to  know  about  using  a 
rifle  with  effect,  there  was  a  very  general  impulse  to 
join  the  Union  armies  and  fight  against  the  slave- 
holding  class,  whom  they  regarded  as  hereditary 
enemies. 

In  the  region  a  little  farther  west  this  class  an- 
tagonism was  intensified  by  a  closer  contact  and  one 
often  more  exasperating.  Between  these  two  classes 
there  was  instinctive  and  implacable  war  already;  and 
when  the  time  came  for  the  poorer  Tennesseans  to 
choose  on  which  side  they  would  fight,  they  very  gen- 
erally elected  to  fight  against  and  not  for  an  institu- 
tion w'hich  they  believed  to  be  the  source  and  origin 


Attitude  of  the  Border  States  197 

and  ultimate  cause  of  that  social  inferiority  which  so 
galled  and  irritated  and  angered  them. 

Let  us  not  misunderstand.  These  people  had  no 
theories  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  The  few  of  them 
who  could  in  any  wise  come  into  the  ownership  of  a 
negro  held  to  that  property  possession  as  resolutely 
as  they  would  have  held  to  the  ownership  of  a  mule 
or  an  ox.  They  were  not  troubled  by  any  scruples  of 
conscience  concerning  the  ownership  of  human  beings 
or  beset  in  their  minds  by  any  abstractions  as  to  human 
rights.  They  no  more  regarded  the  negro  as  the 
equal  of  the  white  man  than  did  their  plantation 
owning  neighbors.  A  negro  was  in  their  eyes  a 
"nigger,"  to  be  worked  to  his  utmost  capacity  and 
mercilessly  lashed  when  guilty  of  any  insolence. 
They  were  even  less  ready  than  their  wealthier  neigh- 
bors to  tolerate  any  assumption  of  equality  on  the 
part  of  a  negro.  They  were  quicker  even  than  the 
planters  to  see  and  resent  such  assumptions  because 
their  own  social  status  as  the  superiors  of  black  men 
was  less  marked  and  less  secure  than  that  of  the 
planters.  A  very  small  concession  on  that  point 
would  have  obliterated  the  only  social  distinction  that 
these  poor  cabin  dwellers  enjoyed.^ 

But  these  mountain  dwellers — these  children  of 
poverty  and  hardship — saw  no  reason  why  they  should 
fight  for  a  system  which  they  resented  with  every 

'  The  author  had  occasion  closely  to  note  a  like  attitude  of  mind  on  the 
part  of  the  cabin  dwellers  of  the  Virginia  mountains,  with  whom  he  was 
brought  into  close  and  constant  contact  during  the  war.  No  rich  planter  in 
all  the  land  could  have  been  more  insistent  than  they  were  upon  the  social 
distinction  between  a  white  man  and  a  negro  or  readier  than  they  to  resent 
negro  assumption. 


198         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

impulse  of  their  minds;  a  system  which  somehow — 
they  could  not  reason  out  how — created  the  disparity 
of  fortune  and  social  status  and  personal  comfort 
which  existed  between  themselves  and  their  planta- 
tion-owning neighbors. 

In  Missouri  the  situation  was  different.  There 
too  the  population  was  divided  in  sentiment  but  not 
upon  strictly  geographical  lines,  in  any  pronounced 
way  at  least.  In  Missouri  more  than  anywhere  else, 
the  war  took  on  the  character  of  a  true  civil  war. 
There  was  a  pretense  of  secession  there  also,  but  it 
represented  only  a  part  of  the  population  and  amount- 
ed only  to  a  declaration  in  favor  of  the  South  by  what 
may  or  may  not  have  been  a  majority  of  the  people. 
It  led  instantly  to  war,  but  it  did  not  distinctly  place 
Missouri  either  in  the  list  of  seceding  states  or  in  that 
of  states  that  adhered  to  the  Union. 

Thus  the  issue  was  made  up.  Eleven  states, 
namely,  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina, 
Georgia,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Louisiana,  Texas, 
Arkansas,  Tennessee  and  Florida,  had  formally  se- 
ceded. Kentucky  had  absurdly  and  futilely  declared 
an  impossible  neutrality,  Missouri  had  entered  upon 
a  program  of  civil  war  within  her  own  borders.  Mary- 
land adhered  to  the  Union  but  sent  the  flower  of  her 
young  manhood  into  the  rival  camps  with  an  almost 
equal  hand.  Delaware,  though  nominally  a  slave 
state,  was  so  situated  as  to  be  out  of  the  reckoning  of 
secession.  The  rest  of  the  states  adhered  to  the  Union 
and  were  prepared  to  support  its  cause  with  unnum- 
bered men  and  unstinted  means. 

It  is  true  nevertheless  that  in  most  of  the  Northern 


Attitude  of  the  Border  States  199 

States  there  was  a  strongly  hostile  and  pro- Southern 
sentiment  that  must  be  reckoned  with,  and  in  New 
York  and  some  other  states  the  reckoning  was  a  diffi- 
cult one,  but  in  no  state  did  that  sentiment  at  any 
time  during  the  war  so  far  secure  control  of  affairs  as 
to  produce  disastrous  results  to  the  Federal  arms  or 
cause. 

Yet  how  dangerously  and  threateningly  strong 
that  sentiment  was,  is  easily  illustrated  by  statistics. 
In  the  presidential  election  of  November,  1864,  after 
the  war  had  been  in  active  and  very  bloody  progress 
for  more  than  three  years  and  a  half,  and  after  the 
power  of  the  Confederates  to  resist  had  been  enor- 
mously reduced  by  battle,  by  blockade  and  by  the 
wearing  lapse  of  time,  there  was  a  comparatively 
narrow  majority  of  votes  cast  in  the  Northern  States 
in  behalf  of  the  Union  cause. 

McClellan  was  the  Democratic  candidate  for 
president.  He  was  running  upon  a  platform  the 
dominant  note  of  which  was  a  declaration  that  the 
war  for  the  restoration  of  the  Union  had  proved  itself 
a  failure  and  should  be  brought  to  an  end.  This  could 
mean  only  that  the  United  States  Government  should 
recognize  the  Confederate  Government  as  a  separate, 
independent  and  equal  power,  and  make  peace  with 
it  on  such  terms  as  could  be  secured.  There  is  no 
other  construction  possible  that  would  be  accepted 
anywhere  outside  the  pages  of  Alice  in  Wonderland. 
It  was  a  distinct  and  definite  proposal  that  the  United 
States  Government  should  give  up  all  its  contentions, 
withdraw  its  armies  from  the  South,  raise  its  blockade, 
admit  that  its  efforts  had  failed,  recognize  the  inde- 


200         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

pendent  sovereignty  of  the  Confederate  States,  and 
make  the  best  peace  it  could  with  that  Republic  as  a 
conquering  power.  Yet  so  strong  was  the  anti-war 
sentiment  at  the  North  that,  with  only  the  people  of 
the  Northern  States  voting,  the  Democratic  candidate 
received  no  less  than  1,808,795  votes  against  2,216,067 
for  his  adversary.  In  other  words  the  proposal  to 
abandon  the  struggle,  recognize  Confederate  inde- 
pendence and  acknowledge  the  United  States  beaten 
after  three  and  a  half  years  of  strenuous,  costly  and 
very  bloody  war,  was  defeated  by  only  407,349  votes 
in  the  Northern  States,  in  a  total  vote  in  those  states 
of  no  less  than  4,024,865. 

This  is  a  fact  of  the  utmost  historical  significance 
which  may  perhaps  be  better  appreciated  if  put  in 
another  form.  This  was  an  election  in  which  only  the 
Northern  States  participated.  The  Union  cause  was 
supported  by  all  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  personal  popu- 
larity; by  all  the  influence  of  an  administration  in 
possession  and  with  the  whole  patronage  of  the  Gov- 
ernment at  its  disposal;  by  all  the  sentiment  of  the 
army  and  the  fathers  and  brothers  of  the  men  in  the 
army;  by  every  influence  in  short — personal,  political 
and  patriotic — that  could  be  brought  to  bear.  Yet 
the  declaration  that  the  war  for  the  Union  was  a 
failure  and  the  proposal  to  abandon  all  that  had  been 
fought  for,  was  defeated  by  a  majority  of  scarcely 
more  than  ten  per  cent,  of  the  total  vote  cast  in  the 
states  that  remained  professedly  loyal  to  the  Union 
cause. 

The  interpretation  of  this  fact  is  unescapable.  It 
means  that  from  beginning  to  end  of  the  war  the 


Attitude  of  the  Border  States  201 

Federal  Government  had  not  one  but  two  enemies  to 
fight — the  Confederacy  with  its  splendidly  robust  and 
enterprising  armies,  in  the  front,  and  the  hostility  of 
very  nearly  one-half  the  population  of  the  Northern 
States  as  an  enemy  in  the  rear. 

In  estimating  the  comparative  resources  and  the 
relative  opportunities  of  the  contending  forces  it  is 
only  fair  that  the  student  of  history  should  reckon  this 
as  some  offset  to  the  fact  that  the  North  enlisted 
2,700,000  soldiers  against  the  South's  600,000;  that  it 
had  a  navy  with  which  to  shut  the  South  off  from  the 
outer  world  while  itself  drawing  freely  upon  every 
land  for  supplies  and  men  and  money;  and  that  its 
resources  in  the  matters  of  food,  machinery,  arms, 
equipments,  medicines  and  all  sanitary  supplies  and 
equipments  were  immeasurably  superior  to  those  of 
the  South.  How  far  the  one  fact  really  offsets  the 
other  is  a  matter  of  which  each  reader  must  judge  for 
himself.  But  it  is  a  fact  worthy  of  observation  that  if 
the  Southern  States  had  been  permitted  to  participate 
in  that  election  of  1864  there  would  have  been  a 
stupendously  overwhelming  majority  of  the  people 
in  behalf  of  the  proposition  that  the  war  had  been  a 
failure  and  in  favor  of  the  proposal  to  end  it  by  the 
recognition  of  Confederate  independence.  Of  course 
the  Confederates,  in  the  attitude  they  had  deliberately 
chosen  to  assume,  were  in  no  remotest  way  entitled  to 
cast  their  votes  in  that  election — nor  did  they  think 
of  claiming  that  privilege — but  the  arithmetical  cal- 
culation serves  to  show  how  easily  the  conservatives 
of  the  two  sections  might  have  controlled  the  situa- 
tion and  saved  the  country  from  a  devastating  war 


202         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

had  they  resolutely  acted  together  at  the  beginning 
against  the  intemperate  radicals  on  both  sides,  the 
self-regardful  politicians  and  the  seekers  after 
shoulder  straps  and  gold-laced  uniforms.  It  serves 
also  to  show  something  of  the  difficulties  with  which! 
those  were  beset  who  had  charge  of  the  Union  cause. 
These  things  are  perhaps  tedious  to  the  reader. 
But  their  just  consideration  is  absolutely  necessary 
to  any  really  impartial  inquiry  into  the  history  of  the 
war,  such  as  this  work  is  intended  to  be. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
"Pepper  Box"  Strategy 

The  moment  Virginia  adopted  an  ordinance  of 
secession  the  authorities  on  both  sides  recognized  the 
fact  that  that  state  was  destined  to  be  the  chief  battle 
ground  of  the  war,  and  especially  that  the  first  and 
perhaps  the  decisive  actions  of  the  struggle  were 
likely  to  occur  there.  Accordingly  both  sides  began 
at  once  to  hurry  troops  to  that  borderland — the  South 
sending  them  to  such  vantage  points  in  Virginia  as 
might  most  seriously  threaten  Washington,  the  North 
sending  them  to  the  capital  city  for  its  defense  and 
for  that  march  upon  Richmond  which,  it  was  hoped 
at  the  North,  might  be  quickly  decisive  of  the  war  in 
favor  of  the  Federal  arms. 

The  Confederate  General  Forrest  is  reported  to 
have  defined  "strategy"  as  the  art  of  "getting  there 
first  with  the  most  men."  This  was  what  each  side  at 
that  time  was  endeavoring  to  do. 

Richmond  was  not  yet  selected  as  the  Confederate 
capital,  but  its  choice  as  such  was  already  fore- 
shadowed as  a  necessary  requirement  alike  of  geog- 
raphy and  politics,  and  within  a  brief  while  the  fore- 
shadowing became  a  fact.  In  the  meanwhile  it  was 
accepted  in  advance  as  a  certainty,  and  the  two  capi- 
tals confronted  each  other  at  a  distance  of  scarcely 
more  than  a  hundred  miles,  as  the  crow  flies. 

903 


204         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

The  Southern  States  poured  troops  into  Richmond 
as  rapidly  as  they  could.  The  Northern  States 
poured  troops  into  Washington  for  the  defense  of 
that  capital  with  all  possible  energy  and  enterprise. 
Neither  upon  the  one  side  nor  upon  the  other  were 
the  men  soldiers  in  any  proper  acceptation  of  the 
term.  They  were  raw  levies.  From  the  North  they 
were  mainly  men  who  had  passed  their  young  lives 
in  commerce,  in  study  or  in  other  peaceful  pursuits. 
From  the  South  they  were  mainly  the  sons  of  plant- 
ers or  the  sons  of  overseers,  accustomed  in  either 
case  from  their  youth  up  to  the  use  of  gunpowder, 
and  to  the  employment  of  those  arms  in  the  use  of 
which  gunpowder  is  a  prime  factor.  The  Southern 
youths  were  accustomed  to  outdoor  life,  to  camp  fare, 
to  self-dependence,  to  self-sacrifice,  if  need  be.  The 
Northern  youth  in  the  main  were  accustomed  to 
nothing  of  the  sort. 

Thus  at  the  beginning  the  Southern  troops  had  an 
advantage.  This  was  peculiarly  obvious  when  the 
cavalry  of  the  two  sections  met  each  other  in  battle. 
The  Southern  horsemen  had  been  "rough  riders" 
from  infancy.  Many  of  the  Northern  men  of  that 
arm  of  the  service  had  never  ridden  at  all  except  per- 
haps by  way  of  conducting  a  gentle  and  docile  farm 
horse  to  a  watering  trough.  In  the  matter  of  horses, 
too,  the  Southerners,  and  especially  the  Virginians, 
had  a  distinct  advantage.  Ever  since  the  first  settle- 
ment of  Virginia  it  had  been  the  custom  of  men  in 
that  nearly  roadless  state  to  go  everywhere  upon 
horseback.  They  had  consequently  given  special  at- 
tention to  the  breeding  of  horses  fit  for  strenuous 


''Pepper  Box"  Strategy  205 

iwork  under  the  saddle,  while  in  the  North  horse-breed- 
^  ing  had  been  conducted  mainly  with  a  view  to  harness 
P  use.  The  wiry  Virginian  thoroughbreds,  or  half- 
breds,  were  far  fitter  for  cavalry  service,  far  more 
enduring,  far  quicker  of  action,  far  more  alert  and 
responsive  than  the  Conestogas  or  Percherons  or 
handsome  and  fast  trotting  Morgans  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, from  which  state  came  the  first  cavalry  regi- 
ments encountered  by  Stuart  and  his  born  and  bred 
cavaliers,  mounted  as  they  were  upon  "Red  Eye" 
colts  or  "Revenue"  fillies. 

The  Southern  troops  also  had  the  advantage  of 
fighting  defensively  in  their  own  country  to  whose 
climate  they  were  inured  and  to  the  diseases  of  which 
they  were  in  the  main  immune. 

But  apart  from  these  small  differences  the  two 
armies  that  confronted  each  other  on  the  Potomac 
were  composed  of  substantially  the  same  materials. 
[Later  in  the  war  the  large  enlistment  of  immigrants 
gave  to  the  Union  army  an  element  that  did  not  at 
any  time  exist  in  the  armies  of  the  South.  But  at 
the  outset  there  was  no  important  difference.  Each 
army  was  made  up  of  American  youths,  full  of 
patriotic  fervor,  brave,  heroic  upon  occasion,  but 
utterly  untrained  in  the  profession  of  arms. 

On  the  Northern  side  in  the  early  contests  of  the 
war  there  was  the  advantage  of  small  bodies  of  regu- 
lars, trained  to  obey  orders  at  all  hazards  and  to 
stand  firm  in  every  moment  of  danger.  These  regu- 
lars proved  themselves  of  inestimable  value  in  the 
early  actions  of  the  war;  but  their  numbers  were  so 
small  that  their  service  scarcely  counts  in  the  his- 
torical reckoning. 


206         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

For  the  rest,  both  armies  were  made  up  of  volun- 
teers, men  wholly  unused  to  military  discipline  and 
wholly  untrained  in  that  subjection  of  their  own 
minds  and  wills  to  superior  authority  which  consti- 
tutes the  distinction  between  the  soldier  and  the  raw 
recruit — between  an  army  and  an  armed  mob.  They 
were  brave  fellows,  all  of  them.  They  were  devoted 
to  the  causes  they  severally  served,  but  they  were  not 
yet  soldiers.  They  retained  the  unsoldierly  habit  of 
thinking  and  judging  for  themselves,  where  they 
should  instead  have  let  their  officers  think  and  judge 
for  them.  Under  the  discipline  of  service  and  of 
fighting  they  presently  reduced  themselves  to  the 
ranks,  as  it  were,  and  became  soldiers  equal  and  even 
superior  to  the  best  regulars  that  any  army  on  earth 
has  ever  brought  into  the  field.  Their  deeds  at  Cold 
Harbor,  at  Fredericksburg,  at  Chancellorsville,  in 
the  Wilderness,  at  Petersburg,  at  Antietam,  at 
Gettysburg,  and  on  a  score  of  other  desperately  con- 
tested battlefields  leave  no  possible  room  for  doubt 
that  the  men  who  composed  the  Federal  and  Con- 
federate armies  were  the  peers  and  even  the  superiors 
of  any  other  men  who  ever  fought  anywhere.  But 
at  the  first  they  were  not  such.  They  were  undis- 
ciplined and  subject  to  such  panics  as  that  sort  of 
individual  thinking  in  which  they  indulged  is  inevi- 
tably bound  to  produce.  It  is  important  to  bear  these 
facts  in  mind  if  we  would  read  the  early  history  of  the 
war  understandingly. 

The  first  blood  shed  in  the  war,  However,  was  not 
shed  in  formal  military  action.  On  the  nineteenth 
of  April,  two  days  after  Virginia's  secession,  a  Balti- 


"Pepper  Box"'  Strategy  207 

more  mob  assailed  a  Massachusetts  regiment  on  its 
passage  through  the  Maryland  city  to  Washington, 
and  several  persons  were  killed  in  the  melee.  It  is 
not  historically  recorded  that  any  of  the  men  who 
constituted  the  mob  and  made  the  assault  ever  after- 
wards served  in  the  Confederate  army.  On  the  con- 
trary there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  these  men, 
so  ready  for  mob  violence,  very  carefully  avoided  a 
service  in  which  legitimate  fighting  was  to  be  the 
daily  routine  of  life.  That,  however,  is  a  detail — 
illustrative,  perhaps,  but  not  otherwise  important  to 
history. 

The  secession  of  Virginia  carried  with  it  one  event 
of  vital  and  even  of  supreme  importance,  namely,  the 
secession  of  Robert  E.  Lee,  without  whose  genius 
the  Confederate  War  would  almost  certainly  have 
ended  in  McClellan's  capture  of  Richmond  in  the 
summer  of  1862. 

General  Winfield  Scott  had  called  Lee  "  the  flower 
of  the  American  Army."  He  had  earnestly  recom- 
mended Lee  as  his  own  fittest  successor  in  supreme 
command  of  the  United  States  Army  and  such  com- 
mand had  been  definitely  offered  to  Lee.  The  seces- 
sion of  half  a  dozen  Northern  or  border  states  could 
not  have  been  of  greater  consequence  either  to  the 
North  or  to  the  South  than  the  decision  of  Robert  E. 
Lee  to  resign  his  commission  and  go  with  his  native 
state  Virginia  into  a  war  of  secession  for  which  he 
saw  no  occasion  or  justification.  His  problem,  like 
that  of  Farragut  and  George  H.  Thomas  and  other 
officers  of  Southern  birth  in  the  United  States  Army 
and  Navy,  was  a  very  perplexing  one,  involving  a 


208         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

divided  duty  such  as  few  men  are  ever  called  upon  to 
confront  in  the  course  of  their  lives.  He  himself  set 
forth  the  considerations  that  finally  determined  his 
course,  in  a  letter  to  his  sister,  the  wife  of  a  Union 
officer,  which  it  is  proper  to  quote  here  in  explanation. 
To  this  sister  he  wrote  on  the  twentieth  of  April, 
1861 :  "We  are  now  in  a  state  of  war  which  will  yield 
to  nothing.  The  whole  South  is  in  a  state  of  revolu- 
tion, into  which  Virginia  after  a  long  struggle  has 
been  drawn,  and  though  I  recognize  no  necessity  for 
this  state  of  things,  and  would  have  foreborne  and 
pleaded  to  the  end  for  the  redress  of  grievances  real 
or  supposed,  yet  in  my  own  person  I  had  to  meet  the 
question  whether  I  should  take  part  against  my  native 
state.  With  all  my  devotion  to  the  Union  and  the 
feeling  of  loyalty  and  duty  of  an  American  citizen, 
I  have  not  been  able  to  make  up  my  mind  to  raise 
my  hand  against  my  relatives,  my  children,  my 
home.  I  have  therefore  resigned  my  commission  in 
the  army,  and,  save  in  defense  of  my  native  state, 
with  the  sincere  hope  that  my  poor  services  may  never 
be  needed,  I  hope  I  may  never  be  called  upon  to  draw 
my  sword." 

Surely  no  more  tragic,  no  more  pathetic  letter  than 
that  was  ever  written.  Yet  it  represented  and  re- 
flected the  struggle  which  at  that  time  was  going  on 
in  the  soul  of  every  army  or  navy  officer  of  Southern 
birth  and  kindred.  It  was  a  part  of  the  tragedy 
of  a  war  which  divided  families  and  set  brother 
against  brother  in  a  strife  that  knew  neither  mercy 
nor  relenting  for  four,  long,  terrible  years. 

Lee  went  at  once  to  Richmond  and  was  promptly 


"Pepper  Booc"  Strategy  209 

appointed  to  the  task  of  organizing  first  the  Vir- 
ginian and  afterwards  all  the  Southern  armies  for 
effective  service.  For  such  work  of  organization  he 
had  a  peculiar  genius  which  General  Scott  recognized, 
at  the  same  time  congratulating  the  Union  cause 
upon  the  fact  that  it  had  some  weeks  the  start  of  Lee 
in  the  task  of  creating  an  army  out  of  untrained  and 
undisciplined  volunteers. 

Lee  was  not  yet  placed  in  any  active  military  com- 
mand, but  at  every  step  he  was  the  supreme  military 
adviser  of  the  Southern  authorities.  When  Beaure- 
gard, with  all  the  laurels  of  popular  praise  upon  him, 
reached  Richmond  he  and  not  Lee  was  the  idol  of  the 
hour.  His  spectacular  and  rather  theatrical  reduc- 
tion of  Fort  Sumter  had  advertised  him  to  the  popu- 
lar attention  as  nothing  had  advertised  Lee.  But 
Lee  was  his  superior  in  rank  as  in  genius  and  every 
thing  else,  and  it  was  he  who  directed  Beauregard  to 
establish  himself  at  Manassas  and  along  Bull  Run  as 
the  fittest  vantage  ground  from  which  to  repel  the 
first  serious  advance  of  the  Federal  Army  which  was 
then  assembling  at  Washington. 

At  that  period  of  the  war  there  prevailed  at  Wash- 
ington what  a  military  wit  and  critic  afterwards 
called  "the  pepper  box  policy."  That  is  to  say,  the 
policy  was  to  send  forces  into  all  quarters  at  once,  to 
defend  large  and  small  positions  equally,  and  thus  to 
scatter  an  army  which  if  concentrated  upon  a  single 
point  might  have  achieved  decisive  results.  Thus  if 
the  whole  force  available  for  eastern  service  had  been 
brought  at  once  to  Washington  and  pushed  thence 
toward  Richmond  it  seemingly  might  have  enveloped 

1-14 


210         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

its  adversary  in  superior  numbers,  and  except  for  the 
uncertainty  due  to  the  untrained  character  of  its  men 
it  might  have  been  reckoned  upon  to  achieve  decisive 
results. 

But  under  the  "pepper  box  policy,''  a  part  of  this 
force  was  sent  under  McClellan  to  West  Virginia;  a 
part  of  it  to  the  Valley  of  Virginia  under  Patterson; 
a  part  of  it  to  Fortress  Monroe,  and  the  main  body  to 
Washington  and  its  neighborhood,  to  protect  the 
capital  and  presently  to  advance  for  the  overthrow 
of  Beauregard  at  Manassas  and  for  a  determined 
advance  upon  Richmond. 

This  policy  invited  defeat  and  met  it.  On  the 
tenth  of  June  the  small  force  at  Fortress  Monroe 
advanced  and  assailed  the  Confederates  at  Big 
Bethel.  It  was  defeated  with  some  loss,  having 
inflicted  no  corresponding  or  compensatory  injury 
upon  the  Confederates.  Even  had  the  expedition 
succeeded  in  driving  the  Confederates  from  Big 
Bethel,  it  could  not  possibly  have  accomplished  any- 
thing of  value  to  the  Federal  arms  or  cause.  It  was 
supported  by  no  force  at  Fortress  Monroe  or  else- 
where which  was  conceivably  adequate  to  undertake 
an  advance  by  that  route  upon  Richmond.  In  de- 
fault of  such  support  the  expedition  was  a  foolish 
and  futile  one,  and  it  must  have  been  so  reckoned 
even  if  it  had  succeeded  in  capturing  the  wholly  unim- 
portant works  at  Big  Bethel. 

In  the  same  way,  early  in  July,  McClellan  gained 
some  notable  advantages  at  Rich  Mountain  and  else- 
where in  West  Virginia.  He  had  distinctly  the  best 
of  it  in  the  fighting ;  he  dislodged  his  adversaries  from 


"Pepper  Booo'^  Strategy  211 

their  chosen  positions;  and  he  made  prisoners  of  a 
considerable  number  of  men.  But  his  expedition  led 
nowhither.  His  position  and  the  positions  which  he 
captured  from  the  Confederates  were  alike  strategi- 
cally unimportant  from  the  point  of  view  of  an 
aggressive  campaign.  His  victories  commanded  no 
strategic  points  and  opened  no  road  to  any  desirable 
objective. 

In  the  Valley  of  Virginia  the  Confederates  aban- 
doned Harper's  Ferry — carrying  off  everything 
there  that  had  military  value,  and  General  Patterson 
occupied  the  place.  This  made  good  dispatches  for 
the  newspapers  and  justified  startling  headlines  of 
victory.  But  in  very  truth  it  meant  nothing  whatever 
except  that  the  wily  Fabian,  Joseph  E.  Johnston,  in 
command  of  the  Confederate  forces  in  that  quarter, 
was  wisely  determined  to  keep  himself  and  his  army 
within  reinforcing  distance  of  Beauregard  at  Ma- 
nassas, where  the  first  great  battle  of  the  war  was 
obviously  destined  to  occur.  Harper's  Ferry  and 
Martinsburg  were  clearly  of  no  value  whatsoever  to 
General  Johnston.  By  abandoning  them  and  retiring 
to  Winchester  he  placed  his  army  twenty-five  or  thirty 
miles  nearer  to  Manassas  than  it  had  been  and  drew 
Patterson  by  so  much  farther  from  the  fighting 
points.  For  in  order  to  reach  and  reinforce  Mc- 
Dowell for  the  impending  Manassas  fight  Patterson 
must  march  north,  recross  the  Potomac,  move  thence 
eastward  to  Washington  and  then  move  southwest 
again  to  McDowell's  assistance.  Johnston  mean- 
while secured  to  himself  a  short  line  of  march  which 
gave  him  a  very  great  advantage. 


212         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

When  the  time  came  for  the  first  great  battle  of 
the  war  to  be  fought,  it  was  hoped  at  Washington 
that  Patterson  with  his  strong  force,  numbering  about 
twenty-two  thousand  men,  might  be  able  to  reinforce 
McDowell,  while  real  or  pretended  operations  might 
detain  Johnston  in  the  valley  and  prevent  him  from 
reinforcing  Beauregard  with  his  much  smaller  force. 
But  by  retiring  to  Winchester  Johnston  had  secured 
for  himself  the  certainty  of  joining  Beauregard  in 
time  for  the  battle.  When  Patterson  threw  for- 
ward a  cloud  of  skirmishers  as  if  intending  to  offer 
battle  at  Winchester  and  secure  the  mountain  passes 
into  eastern  Virginia,  it  did  not  take  the  ceaselessly 
active  cavalry  leader  J.  E.  B.  Stuart  many  hours  of 
continuous  skirmishing  within  his  enemy's  lines  to 
discover  that  the  movement  was  a  feint  and  that 
Patterson  was  in  fact  hurrying  the  main  body  of  his 
army  toward  Manassas,  by  way  of  Harper's  Ferry 
and  Washington. 

Even  before  Stuart  definitely  reported  this  fact, 
Johnston  had  so  far  penetrated  Patterson's  purpose 
that  he  began  his  own  movement  toward  Manassas, 
sending  first  the  heavier  and  more  slowly  moving 
corps  across  the  mountains  to  a  point  where  railroad 
transportation  was  to  meet  them,  and  thus  clearing 
the  way  for  the  cavalry  and  the  lighter  infantry  and 
the  well-horsed  field  batteries  to  proceed  over  country 
roads  without  the  assistance  of  railroad  cars. 

Thus  the  "pepper  box"  system  of  strategy  which 
prevailed  at  Washington  met  its  first  defeat.  If 
Patterson  had  been  sent  at  the  outset  to  strengthen 


""Pepper  Box"  Strategy  213 

McDowell  the  result  of  the  battle  of  Manassas  might 
or  might  not  have  been  different  from  what  it  was. 
But  at  any  rate  that  arrangement  would  have  given 
to  McDowell  a  much  greater  preponderance  of 
strength  than  he  actually  had  on  that  battlefield.  If 
Patterson  had  not  gone  to  the  valley  of  course 
Johnston  would  not  have  gone  thither  to  meet  him, 
and  the  bulk  of  Johnston's  force  would  have  been 
added  to  Beauregard's.  But  Patterson's  army  very 
largely  outnumbered  the  force  that  Johnston  had  at 
Winchester  within  striking  distance  of  Manassas,  so 
that  the  total  result  of  the  plan  of  concentration  would 
have  been  to  strengthen  McDowell. 

More  important  still  is  the  fact  that  while  Johnston 
actually  got  a  large  part  of  his  army  to  Manassas  in 
time  to  decide  the  battle,  Patterson  never  got  there 
at  all.  So  in  considering  the  policy  that  sent  Patter- 
son to  the  valley  instead  of  sending  him  to  the  line 
of  Bull  Run,  we  are  entitled  to  reckon  it  as  the  cause 
of  Patterson's  complete  absence  from  a  field  on  which 
his  valley  adversary  was  present  with  timely  and 
sorely  needed  strength. 

In  the  meantime  and  throughout  the  summer  there 
was  a  civil  war  going  on  in  Missouri  with  varying 
fortunes.  It  occupied  many  thousands  of  men  who 
might  perhaps  have  been  more  wisely  and  effectively 
employed  in  aid  of  the  one  great  movement  upon 
Richmond,  which  if  it  had  been  thus  made  conspicu- 
ously successful,  would  pretty  certainly  have  made 
an  end  of  the  war  before  it  had  had  time  to  develop 
its  strength.     Those  operations  in  Missouri  had  a 


214  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

dramatic  interest  of  their  own.  But  they  in  no  way- 
bore  upon  the  problems  of  grand  strategy  which  were 
meanwhile  the  proper  and  legitimate  objects  of 
supreme  concern  and  consideration  by  the  two  stal- 
wart contestants. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

Manassas 

At  midsummer,  1861,  there  occurred  near  Ma- 
nassas Junction  in  Virginia  a  battle  which  must  al- 
ways be  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of 
conflicts  whether  we  consider  its  unusual  event  or  its 
extraordinary  sequences. 

The  battle  was  utterly  untimely  in  its  happening. 
It  was  a  contest  of  the  unready  with  the  unready. 
It  was  brought  about  by  influences  peculiarly  un- 
military  and  in  defiance  of  the  judgment  of  all  the 
military  men  who  had  aught  to  do  with  it.  We  shall 
see  hereafter  in  how  strange  a  way  it  produced  effects 
precisely  the  opposite  of  those  that  were  legitimately 
to  be  expected  of  it;  how  to  the  victors  in  it  it  brought 
a  paralysis  of  enterprise  far  greater  than  disaster 
itself  could  have  wrought. 

The  Confederates  lay  at  Manassas  Junction  thirty 
miles  or  so  southwest  of  Washington,  with  a  force 
numbering  by  official  report  21,833  men  and  twenty- 
nine  guns.  The  Federals  had  in  front  of  Washing- 
ton a  total  available  force  of  34,000  men.  On  both 
sides  the  men  were  volunteers,  unused  to  the  ways  of 
war  and  unfit  to  enter  upon  a  great  battle.  In  this 
respect,  as  has  been  already  said,  the  Confederates 
had  somewhat  the  advantage  in  the  fact  that  their 
volunteers  were  accustomed  to  outdoor  life  and  to  the 

215 


216         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

use  of  firearms,  while  those  on  the  Federal  side  were 
largely  drawn  from  the  counter,  the  bookkeeper's 
desk,  the  factory,  the  farm,  and  the  village.  But  on 
both  sides  they  were  untrained,  undisciplined,  un- 
learned in  the  arts  of  war,  and  so  loosely  organized 
that  their  organization  could  scarcely  at  all  be  con- 
sidered as  an  element  of  strength. 

To  offset  this  small  Confederate  advantage  the 
Federals  had  behind  them  supply  departments  almost 
perfect,  while  the  Confederates  were  very  nearly 
starved  to  death  by  official  incompetency  in  those  de- 
partments even  at  that  early  period  of  the  war. 

At  Manassas  they  were  perilously  short  not  only 
of  provisions  and  forage,  but  even  of  water,  all  by 
reason  of  an  extraordinary  incapacity  on  the  part  of 
supply  departments  that  began  their  careers  by 
strangling  themselves  and  their  armies  with  red  tape. 

The  facts  of  this  matter  have  been  set  forth  in 
detail  in  General  Beauregard's  official  reports,  and 
in  other  authoritative  publications.  Only  a  synopsis 
of  them  is  necessary  in  this  history.  The  Confeder- 
ate army  lay  at  Manassas  in  the  midst  of  a  country 
abounding  in  supplies,  but  its  quartermasters  and 
commissaries  were  not  permitted  to  draw  upon  that 
source  of  supply  even  in  the  smallest  way.  For 
months,  before  and  after  the  battle  of  Manassas,  an 
entirely  unused  railroad — the  Manassas  Gap  line — 
lay  idle.  It  penetrated  a  country  to  the  west  of  the 
army  whose  granaries  were  full,  whose  smoke-houses 
were  rich  in  food,  and  whose  fields  were  laden  with 
ripening  corn.  A  country  similarly  rich  in  food  lay 
to  the  north,  between  the  Federal  and  Confederate 


Manassas  217 

lines.  Its  supplies  were  sure  to  fall  into  Federal 
hands  presently  if  not  seized  upon  by  the  Confeder- 
ates while  they  had  opportunity.  But  the  Confed- 
erate supply  departments  at  Richmond  absolutely 
forbade  their  own  lieutenants  at  Manassas  to  feed 
and  forage  the  army  from  such  easily  available 
sources.  They  forbade  any  food  or  forage  purchases 
to  be  made  in  that  region  except  by  purchasing 
agents  of  their  own,  and  they  required  that  all  food 
and  forage  so  purchased  in  the  immediate  neighbor- 
hood of  the  army  should  be  shipped  to  Richmond  over 
the  already  overburdened,  single  track  Virginia  Cen- 
tral railroad,  and  shipped  back  again  in  such  meager 
doles  as  the  broken-down  railroad  could  carry. 

This  peculiar  imbecility  of  management  continued 
till  very  nearly  the  end  of  the  war  to  keep  the  Confed- 
erate armies  half  starved  or  wholly  starved  even  when 
their  camps  lay  in  the  midst  of  available  plenty.  The 
difference  between  the  admirable  management  of 
the  supply  departments  at  the  North  and  the  phenom- 
enally stupid  management  of  the  like  departments  at 
the  South  was,  from  beginning  to  end,  the  full  equiva- 
lent of  an  army  corps'  difference  in  the  number  of 
fighting  men. 

Besides  Beauregard's  army  there  was  a  small  force 
at  Fredericksburg  from  which  Beauregard  was  able 
to  draw  1,355  men  and  six  guns  in  time  for  the  battle. 
In  the  last  preceding  chapter  it  has  been  shown  how 
Johnston  succeeded  in  transferring  a  large  part  of 
his  army — 6,000  men  and  twenty  guns — to  Manassas 
in  time  for  the  battle,  while  none  of  Patterson's  regi- 
ments or  batteries  succeeded  even  in  placing  them- 


218         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

selves  within  supporting  distance  of  the  Federal 
army  there  engaged. 

Thus,  according  to  the  official  reports,  the  Confed- 
erates had  in  all  29,188  men  and  fifty-five  guns  with 
which,  in  a  strong  position  of  their  own  selection,  to 
meet  the  advance  of  McDowell's  force  estimated  by 
the  best  Northern  authorities  at  about  34,000  men. 

If  Patterson  had  not  been  sent  to  the  valley  at  all, 
but  to  Washington  instead,  the  Federal  force  would 
have  been  swelled  to  55,000  or  60,000  men,  while 
Beauregard's  strength  could  not  have  been  increased 
by  more  than  a  few  thousands  at  most.  In  that  case 
the  result  of  the  first  great  battle  of  the  war  might 
or  might  not  have  been  different  from  what  it  was — 
for  with  wholly  untrained  troops  strength  is  not  al- 
ways to  be  accurately  measured  by  numbers.  But  in 
any  case  the  probability  would  have  been  greatly  in- 
creased that  the  first  battle  of  the  war  should  be  the 
last  and  that  the  country  by  quick  and  complete  vict- 
ory should  be  spared  four  years  of  desolating  war 
that  threw  homes  by  scores  of  thousands  into  the 
shadow. 

The  battle  was  brought  about  not  in  answer  to  any 
consideration  of  military  propriety  but  solely  in  re- 
sponse to  ignorant  but  irresistible  popular  clamor. 
The  people  of  this  country  knew  nothing  of  modern 
war  or  of  the  conditions  that  govern  success  or  failure 
in  it.  The  latest  national  recollection  of  war  was  of 
the  unequal  conflict  with  Mexico  nearly  a  decade  and 
a  half  before.  The  American  people  had  never  seen 
assembled  in  their  name  and  behalf  an  army  half  so 
great  as  that  with  which  their  patriotism  had  now  re- 


Manassas  219 

sponded  to  the  country's  call.  In  front  of  Washing- 
ton and  in  the  near-by  valley  of  Virginia  they  had 
between  fifty  and  sixty  thousand  men,  while  their 
adversaries  could  muster  there  only  a  little  more  than 
half  as  many. 

Knowing  little  of  the  difference  between  uniformed 
men  with  arms  in  their  hands  and  seasoned  soldiers, 
the  people  at  the  North  grew  violently  impatient  of 
the  delay.  They  had  furnished  their  Government 
twice  as  many  armed  men  as  the  enemy  could  count, 
and  they  could  not  understand  why  the  double  force 
thus  created  should  not  go  on  at  once  to  make  an  end 
of  what  they  regarded  as  the  "nonsense  down  there 
in  Virginia." 

So  confident  had  been  the  conviction  at  the  North 
that  this  was  a  petty  outbreak  to  be  suppressed  easily 
and  quickly,  that  a  large  part  of  the  enlistments  were 
for  no  more  than  three  months.  That  period  seemed 
to  them  more  than  adequate  to  the  task  in  hand,  and 
it  had  been  deemed  needless  to  take  young  men  away 
from  their  homes  and  their  employments  for  a  greater 
length  of  time. 

It  is  plain  enough  that  the  administration  at  Wash- 
ington at  first  shared  this  conception  of  the  case. 
Otherwise  it  would  neither  have  called  for  nor  ac- 
cepted three  months  volunteers. 

But  the  three  months  were  now  nearly  expired, 
and  nothing  had  been  done  to  make  an  end  of  the 
"nonsense."  The  terms  of  service  of  many  regiments 
were  soon  to  expire  and  there  seemed  to  be  no  general 
disposition  on  the  part  of  the  men  composing  them 
to  enter  into  new  enlistments.     It  was  obvious  that 


220         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

unless  the  "army"  at  and  near  Washington  should 
go  forward  at  once,  crush  Beauregard's  greatly  in- 
ferior force,  march  on  to  Richmond  and  make  an  end 
of  the  difficulty,  new  levies  must  be  called  for  and  a 
new  strain  put  upon  the  endurance  and  the  patience 
of  the  people. 

All  this  impatience  found  daily  and  often  intem- 
perate expression  in  the  newspapers,  whose  rivalry 
in  clamor  fanned  the  flame  of  discontent  among  the 
people.  Desk  strategists  who  knew  nothing  of  war's 
conditions  had  an  easy  task  in  figuring  out  with  their 
blue  pencils  an  absolutely  certain  victory  for  the 
Federal  arms,  if  only  the  Federal  generals  could  be 
persuaded  or  compelled  by  public  opinion  to  avail 
themselves  of  their  matchless  opportunity.  "Are  not 
two  more  than  one?  And  have  not  we  the  two  to  our 
enemy's  one?  What  dullards  and  laggards  our  gen- 
erals must  be  to  delay  for  a  day  or  an  hour!"  So  ran 
the  editorial  argument,  and  that  argument  seemed  to 
the  people  conclusive  and  convincing,  for  the  reason 
that  the  people  generally  were  as  ignorant  as  the 
strategists  of  the  editorial  rooms  themselves  concern- 
ing the  conditions  that  govern  battle  and  the  training 
necessary  to  convert  civilian  volunteers  into  soldiers 
fit  to  face  a  fire  of  musketry  and  cannon. 

The  military  men  knew  better,  of  course.  Except 
the  superannuated  commander-in-chief.  General 
Scott,  not  one  of  them  had  ever  commanded  so  much 
as  a  brigade  in  battle,  but  at  least  they  had  been 
taught  in  a  military  school  and  many  of  them  had  seen 
fighting.  They  knew  the  peril  of  hurling  ill-organ- 
ized regiments  of  utterly  untrained  and  undisciplined 


Manassas  221 

civilians  upon  the  chosen  positions  of  an  armed  foe, 
even  when  that  foe's  forces  were  in  a  like  condition  of 
undisciplined  inefficiency.  The  arithmetical  argu- 
ment in  no  degree  deceived  them.  They  knew  that 
with  such  men  as  they  had  under  their  command 
strength  could  not  be  safely  reckoned  by  a  mere 
numerical  count,  that  under  certain  easily  imagined 
conditions,  indeed,  strength  must  often  be  in  inverse 
ratio  to  numbers.  They  perfectly  knew  that  for  them 
to  advance  against  the  Confederates  with  an  army  in 
such  condition  as  theirs  was  at  that  time  was  to  take 
a  fearful  risk  of  defeat,  disastrous  and  demoralizing 
to  the  army  and  dangerously  discouraging  to  the 
country  behind  the  army. 

But  the  demand  on  the  part  of  press,  pulpit  and 
people  for  an  immediate  advance  was  too  insistent, 
too  clamorous,  and  was  rapidly  becoming  too  angry 
to  be  longer  resisted.  It  was  reinforced  by  an  almost 
equally  insistent  demand  on  the  part  of  the  civilian 
authorities  at  Washington,  whose  ignorance  of  mili- 
tary conditions  was  scarcely  less  pronounced  than  that 
of  the  excited  editors  and  orators  of  the  country. 

It  was  decided  therefore  to  advance  the  army  and 
bring  on  the  hazardous  battle  against  the  better  judg- 
ment of  every  trained  military  man  at  Washington. 

General  Scott  was  still  in  supreme  command  of 
the  army,  but  he  was  much  too  old  and  too  feeble  to 
conduct  the  perilous  enterprise  in  person.  General 
Irwin  McDowell  was  chosen  to  plan  the  battle  and 
fight  it.  He  had  never  commanded  an  army  before 
or  conducted  a  campaign,  but  neither  had  any  other 
officer  then  available,  and  his  technical  knowledge  of 


222         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

strategy  was  thorough.  On  this  occasion  his  plan  of 
battle  was  admirable,  one  of  the  best,  General  Sher- 
man has  said,  that  was  formed  at  any  time  during  the 
war.  It  was  essentially  identical  with  that  afterwards 
adopted  by  General  Lee  at  the  Seven  Days'  Battles 
and  again  at  Chancellorsville. 

A  reconnoissance  in  force  was  made  against  the 
Confederate  lines  along  Bull  Run  on  Thursday,  the 
eighteenth  of  July,  which  disclosed  the  fact  that  the 
Confederates  were  fully  entrenched  in  a  strong  posi- 
tion which  commanded  the  crossings  of  the  stream 
and  the  plateau  over  which  it  must  be  approached. 

Having  found  out  all  this.  General  McDowell  de- 
cided to  bring  on  a  battle  on  Sunday,  July  the  twenty- 
first. 

It  is  not  the  purpose  of  the  present  writer  to  tell 
the  story  of  Manassas  or  that  of  any  other  battle  in 
military  detail.  That  has  been  done  too  often  already, 
to  the  hopeless  confusion  of  the  civilian  reader's  mind. 
Only  an  intelligible  outline  is  attempted  here,  with  no 
effort  to  locate  this  or  that  division  or  brigade  or  regi- 
ment or  battery  upon  the  field  or  to  follow  out  the 
details  of  any  movement  made  by  any  of  them. 

Beauregard  held  his  line  along  the  stream  known 
as  Bull  Run,  over  a  space  of  several  miles.  This  line 
had  been  established  in  defense  of  the  railroad  "junc- 
tion" at  Manassas  where  the  line  of  the  Orange  and 
Alexandria  railroad  joined  that  of  the  Manassas 
Gap  railroad.  This  position  was  suggested  by  the 
artificial  geography  of  railroad  construction.  It  was 
defended  by  the  natural  physical  geography  of  Bull 
Run,  which  furnished  the  Confederates  a  compara- 


Manassas  223 

tively  good,  though  by  no  means  a  strategically  satis- 
factory, line  of  defensive  fighting. 

McDowell's  purpose  was  to  assail  the  Confederates 
on  their  extreme  right,  there  making  a  feint  as  if  to 
force  a  crossing  of  Bull  Run  at  that  point  which  he 
did  not  at  all  intend ;  to  march  his  stronger  battalions 
to  his  own  right  along  roads  substantially  parallel  with 
Bull  Run ;  here  and  there  to  divert  a  force  to  the  Bull 
Run  line  and  make  fighting  there  by  way  of  pre- 
venting Confederate  concentration  at  any  point  and 
finally  to  hurl  all  his  force  with  irresistible  fury  upon 
the  extreme  left  of  the  Confederate  line,  which  he 
intended  and  confidently  expected  to  turn  and  over- 
whelm with  his  superior  numbers. 

It  was  McDowell's  plan  to  deceive  the  Confed- 
erates as  to  his  point  of  decisive  attack,  to  keep  them 
busy  all  along  the  Bull  Run  line  and,  late  in  the  day, 
to  envelop  their  left  wing,  crush  it  by  superior  force, 
capture  the  railroad  and  perhaps  compel  Beaure- 
gard's surrender  for  lack  of  a  line  of  retreat. 

The  plan  worked  well  for  a  time.  The  attacks  of 
McDowell's  divisions  upon  the  Confederate  right  and 
center  were  stoutly  and  successfully  resisted  at  every 
point,  but  they  were  made  with  determination  and 
they  served  their  purpose  of  deceiving  the  Southern 
commander  or  at  least  of  preventing  him  from  with- 
drawing heavy  forces  from  that  part  of  the  field  for 
the  defense  of  his  left  against  the  final  and  crushing 
assault  which  McDowell  intended  to  make  there,  and 
in  preparation  for  which  he  was  all  day  moving  his 
heaviest  columns  in  that  direction  along  roads  not 
visible  from  the  Confederate  lines. 


224         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

When  at  last  that  assault  was  made,  it  found 
Beauregard  inadequately  prepared  for  it;  but,  with 
the  determination  and  energy  which  were  the  domi- 
nant traits  of  his  character,  the  Confederate  general 
held  his  ground  obstinately  and  hurriedly  moved 
troops  from  the  right  to  the  left  of  his  line. 

The  fighting  raged  furiously  at  this  critical  point 
and  for  a  considerable  time  its  result  was  in  doubt, 
with  the  chances  strongly  in  favor  of  the  Federals. 
Three  times  the  tide  of  battle  ebbed  and  flowed  across 
the  disputed  field,  both  sides  fighting  with  a  cour- 
age and  obstinacy  that  were  scarcely  to  have  been 
expected  of  troops  so  little  inured  to  the  work  of 
war. 

When  the  struggle  was  at  its  fiercest,  and  at  the 
moment  when  the  promise  of  it  seemed  to  be  that 
the  Federals  would  overwhelm  and  crush  their  sorely 
outnumbered  adversaries,  a  strong  detachment  of 
Johnston's  troops  from  the  Valley,  long  delayed  on 
their  railroad  journey,  reached  the  field.  Their  orders 
were  of  the  vaguest,  but  they  plainly  saw  an  over- 
mastering Federal  force  pressing  the  Confederates 
very  hard  in  their  immediate  presence.  So,  following 
the  Napoleonic  instruction  to  go  to  the  point  of  Heavi- 
est firing  the  officers  commanding  the  arriving  Con- 
federates went  at  once  into  the  thick  of  the  fight. 

It  was  the  work  of  a  brief  time  for  these  fresh  men 
to  envelop  the  advancing  Federal  right  wing  and 
crush  it  to  pulp. 

In  the  meanwhile  the  sorely  beset  left  wing  of  the 
Confederates  had  been  enabled  to  hold  its  ground  and 
save  itself  for  a  time  from  complete  disaster,  only  by 


Manassas  225 

the  obstinate  courage  of  a  brigade  of  Virginians 
under  General  Thomas  Jonathan  Jackson — a  West 
Pointer  who  had  long  ago  resigned  from  the  old 
army  to  become  a  professor  in  the  Virginia  Military- 
Institute,  and  who  had  now  become  a  brigadier-gen- 
eral of  Virginia  volunteers.  He  had  already  so  com- 
pletely won  the  hearts  and  dominated  the  minds  of 
his  men  that — raw  volunteers  as  they  were — they  had 
no  thought  of  faltering  or  flinching  in  the  presence 
of  any  danger,  so  long  as  their  chieftain  bade  them 
stand  fast.  One  after  another  the  battalions  with 
which  they  had  touched  elbows  were  beaten  back  be- 
fore a  leaden  hailstorm,  or  torn  to  shreds  by  cannon 
fire  at  murderously  short  range,  or  fairly  forced  to 
the  rear  by  bayonet-armed  phalanxes,  while  their  own 
brigade  line  was  steadily  withering  under  the  de- 
structive fire.  But  they  were  under  inspiration  of 
a  leader  whom  they  loved  and  whose  courage  was 
inspired  by  a  religious  faith  as  unfaltering  as  that  of 
any  Mussulman  fanatic,  and  so  they  stood  steadfast 
in  spite  of  all.  They  looked  for  their  orders  only 
to  that  great,  calm,  passionless  leader,  and  from  him 
alone  they  took  their  impulse.  Scarcely  at  any  time 
during  a  war  that  abounded  in  illustrations  of  hero- 
ism, was  there,  on  either  side,  a  more  conspicuous 
example  of  the  courage  that  endures,  than  that  which 
was  afforded  by  Jackson  and  his  Virginians  at  that 
most  critical  moment  of  the  first  great  battle.  It 
excited  admiration  and  inspired  others  with  courage 
even  in  that  hour  of  seemingly  hopeless  defeat.  Gen- 
eral Bee,  who  was  destined  a  few  minutes  later  to 
become  a  martyr  to  his  own  courage,  seeing  it,  cried 

1-15 


226         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

out  to  his  wavering  men:  "There  stands  Jackson  like 
a  stone  wall,"  and  appealed  to  them  to  emulate  the 
example  of  their  comrades  and  "rally  on  the  Vir- 
ginians." From  that  hour  to  this  the  title  "Stone- 
wall" has  clung  to  the  fame  and  memory  of  Jackson 
more  closely  than  his  own  proper  name  has  done. 

Under  the  fierce  onset  of  Johnston's  fresh  men, 
supported  by  rallying  brigades  that  had  for  a  time 
faltered  and  yielded  ground,  and  reinforced  from 
the  Confederate  right,  the  Federal  assailing  column 
was  quickly  crushed  and  forced  to  retire,  the  Con- 
federates pressing  hotly  upon  their  heels. 

Then  occurred  that  insane  panic  in  the  Federal 
army  which  has  never  been  explained  or  accounted 
for  except  upon  the  insufficient  ground  that  its  vic- 
tims were  men  without  discipline  and  wholly  unused 
to  war.  The  explanation  leaves  much  to  be  desired. 
The  men  who  yielded  to  that  panic  impulse  had  al- 
ready on  that  day  proved  themselves  brave  fellows, 
quite  capable  of  doing  soldiers'  work  right  gallantly. 
They  had  fought  with  vigor,  determination  and  high 
courage  through  long  and  bloody  hours.  They  had 
been  the  assailants  where  assault  required  a  greater 
courage  than  defense  and  they  had  done  their  soldierly 
work  altogether  well.  They  had  been  baffled  of  vic- 
tory in  the  crowning  hour  of  the  battle,  but  they 
perfectly  knew  that  their  columns  still  outnumbered 
those  of  their  adversary,  and  they  must  have  known 
that  in  an  orderly  withdrawal  from  the  scene  of  the 
conflict  they  were  not  in  the  least  degree  likely  to  be 
destructively  assailed  in  their  turn.  Nothing  was 
more  unlikely  indeed,  than  that  the  Confederates, 


Manassas  227 

having  exhausted  their  freshness  of  vigor  in  the 
battle  and  having  achieved  their  immediate  purpose 
by  repelling  their  enemy's  assault,  would  in  their  turn 
advance  upon  that  enemy,  still  outnumbering  them, 
if  he  had  withdrawn  in  good  order  and  taken  up  a 
strong  defensive  position  at  Centreville,  only  a  few 
miles  away.  Had  the  Federal  Army  done  that,  pre- 
serving its  cohesion  and  presenting  a  determined 
front,  it  is  indeed  certain  that  the  Confederates  would 
not  have  cared  to  convert  their  successful  defense 
into  a  more  than  doubtful  offense ;  and  even  had  that 
happened  through  Confederate  over-confidence,  the 
opportunity  of  the  Federals  to  convert  their  own  de- 
feat into  a  conspicuous  victory  would  have  been  as 
tempting  as  any  that  an  army  could  desire. 

Later  in  the  war  after  the  two  armies  had  been 
molded  into  effectiveness  by  the  stern  discipline  of 
service,  some  such  course  as  this  would  undoubtedly 
have  been  pursued.  But  at  Manassas  the  event  was 
startlingly  different.  No  sooner  did  the  Federal 
troops  that  had  fought  so  gallantly  on  the  right  of 
their  line  find  their  assault  repelled  and  themselves 
forced  back  than  all  cohesion,  all  discipline,  all 
soldierly  qualities  went  out  of  them.  They  broke 
ranks  and  fled  in  a  positively  demented  panic,  which 
unfortunately  proved  to  be  instantly  and  universally 
contagious.  The  whole  army  fell  into  confusion. 
Even  those  parts  of  it  which  ha4|  successfully  held 
their  own  in  severe  conflicts  throughout  the  battle 
hours  broke  ranks  and  ran  as  an  unorganized  mob 
might  at  the  advance  of  a  force  of  regulars  armed 
with  bayonets.    -  ' 


228         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

The  Confederates,  flushed  with  unexpected  victory 
achieved  in  the  moment  of  defeat,  pursued  them  with 
all  the  quick-moving  forces  available,  chief  among 
these  being  Stuart's  small  body  of  Virginia  cavalry. 

There  was  a  report  current  in  the  Federal  army 
that  J.  E.  B.  Stuart  had  under  his  command  thirty 
thousand  of  the  finest  and  most  desperately  daring 
horsemen  that  had  been  known  in  the  world  since  the 
days  of  the  Mamelukes.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  had 
under  his  orders  five  or  six  hundred  young  Vir- 
ginians. They  knew  how  to  ride  their  horses,  they 
knew  how  to  use  their  revolvers,  and  they  knew  in 
some  degree  at  least  how  to  handle  their  sabers.  They 
had  been  trained  to  all  that  all  their  lives  and  per- 
fected in  it  at  the  camp  of  instruction  at  Ashland. 
But  beyond  that  they  had  no  skill  and  no  superiority 
and  it  was  their  constant  wonder  after  the  battle  of 
Manassas,  that  during  the  chase  they  almost  nowhere 
met  the  cavalry  of  the  other  side.  They  met  and 
quickly  dispersed  artillery  and  infantry,  but  nowhere 
did  they  encounter  men  of  their  own  arm  of  the 
service.  They  had  met  and  fought  horsemen  in  the 
Valley  of  Virginia — for  Stuart  had  been  with 
Johnston  there — ^but  they  encountered  none  such 
now. 

The  simple  fact  is  that  the  Union  army  was  in  an 
insane  panic  and  utterly  disorganized.  The  sole 
thought  of  every  man  in  it  was  to  escape  with  a 
whole  skin  if  that  should  be  in  any  way  possible.  The 
cavalry  men  having  horses  under  them  put  spurs  to 
their  steeds  and  led  instead  of  protectingly  following 
a  confused  and  confusing  retreat  upon  Washington. 


Manassas  229 

Artillery  men  cut  their  horses  out  of  their  gun 
carriages  and  caissons,  mounted  them,  aiid  fled  bare- 
back at  such  speed  as  the  horses  could  make. 

At  a  little  stream  a  caisson  in  mad  flight  was  pres- 
ently overturned,  obstructing  a  bridge.  A  great 
cloud  of  panic-stricken  soldiers  and  citizens  seeking 
an  avenue  of  flight  was  collected  there  almost  in  an 
instant.  Then  up  came  Kemper  of  the  cannon,  pow- 
der-grimed and  weary  but  flushed  with  the  victory. 
Using  two  guns  he  opened  fire  upon  the  confused 
crowd  at  short  range,  with  an  eff*ect  like  that  pro- 
duced upon  a  flock  of  partridges  when  a  charge  of 
shot  is  fired  into  its  midst.  Then  a  little  squad  of 
Stuart's  cavalry  men — ^ten  or  a  dozen  in  number — 
drew  sabers  and  charged,  and  a  minute  later  the 
creek  was  full  of  struggling  and  drowning  men,  but 
no  organized  force  remained  to  be  charged  except 
a  body  of  eighty  infantry  men  fully  armed,  with 
bayonets  fixed,  who  stood  away  on  the  left.  Upon 
these  the  insignificant  squad  of  cavalry  men  made  a 
dashing  charge,  calling  out  as  they  galloped:  "Throw 
down  your  arms  or  well  put  you  to  the  sword!"  And 
so  completely  demoralizing  had  the  panic  become  that 
these  eighty  who  could  instantly  have  swept  the  little 
band  of  cavalry  men  off*  the  face  of  the  earth,  not 
only  dashed  their  arms  to  the  ground  but  broke  ranks 
and  ran,  every  individual  man  seeking  such  escape  as 
might  be  possible  to  him. 

The  men  who  were  so  panic-stricken  on  that  fateful 
Sunday  were  not  cowards.  Many  of  them  fought 
valiantly  and  stalwartly  later  in  the  war.  They  were 
simply  victims  of  an  insensate  and  highly  contagious 


230         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

panic.  They  were  not  yet  soldiers.  They  had  not 
yet  learned  the  first  lesson  of  the  soldier,  namely, 
the  imperative  necessity  of  preserving  organization, 
fighting  every  force  encountered,  and  waiting  for 
orders  that  must  be  obeyed  at  all  costs,  especially  be- 
fore giving  way  to  the  enemy.  Their  imaginations 
had  been  inflamed  by  the  stories  related  at  their  camp 
fires  respecting  Stuart's  mythical  Mamelukes  and 
their  terrible  skill  in  horsemanship. 

In  brief  all  courage,  all  cohesion,  and  all  soldierly 
quality  had  completely  gone  out  of  the  Federal  army. 
Men  who  had  fought  courageously  an  hour  before 
had  become  as  hares  fleeing  from  pursuing  hounds, 
and  their  flight  knew  no  halting  until  they  had 
passed  the  long  bridge  into  the  streets  of  Washing- 
ton, where  they  paused  only  to  gather  breath  for  a 
still  further  flight  if  such  should  become  necessary. 

In  all  this  the  confusion  was  increased  and  multi- 
plied by  the  presence  among  the  fugitives  of  a 
multitude  of  panic-stricken  picnickers — Congress- 
men, civiUans  of  every  sort,  and  lavishly  dressed 
women — who  had  gone  out  in  carriages  and  carryalls 
to  see  the  spectacle  of  a  Federal  army  walking  over 
the  Confederates,  and  to  follow  the  fleeing  rebels  all 
the  way  to  Richmond,  feasting  meanwhile  upon  the 
champagne,  the  boned  turkey,  the  sandwiches  and  the 
truffled  game  with  which  they  had  so  lavishly  supplied 
themselves  that  the  Confederates  fed  fat  for  days 
afterwards  upon  the  provisions  that  the  picnickers 
abandoned  in  their  flight. 

The  presence  of  these  people  within  the  lines  of  a 
fighting  army  was  in  itself  a  conspicuous  illustration 


Manassas  231 

of  the  utterly  unmilitary  and  undisciplined  condition 
of  that  army.  Imagine,  if  it  be  possible  to  imagine, 
such  a  horde  of  sightseers  attempting  to  follow 
Grant  into  the  Wilderness,  or  Sherman  on  his  march 
to  the  Sea!  But  the  war  was  very  young  when  the 
battle  of  Manassas  was  fought,  and  so  these  people 
were  permitted  to  be  there,  to  add  to  the  completeness 
of  a  rout  that  could  never  have  been  equaled  in  its 
insanity  at  any  later  period  of  the  conflict. 

As  to  the  total  number  of  men  engaged  on  either 
side  at  Manassas,  the  statistics  are  varying  and  un- 
trustworthy. It  is  certain  that  there  was  no  very 
great  or  decisive  disparity  of  numbers.  The  Federal 
army  outnumbered  that  of  the  Confederates  by  only 
three  or  four  thousand  men.  General  Beauregard 
has  estimated  his  total  force,  including  the  necessary 
garrison  of  the  works,  which  of  course  was  not  actu- 
ally engaged,  at  a  total  of  29,188  men.  According  to 
Dr.  Rossiter  Johnson,  an  unusually  accurate  and  con- 
scientious historian  on  the  Northern  side  whose  means 
of  information  are  of  the  very  best,  McDowell's  total 
force,  including  those  detached  to  guard  the  line  of 
retreat  upon  Washington,  was  about  34,000  men. 

Exact  statistics  in  such  a  case  are  of  no  moment. 
Where  armed  mobs,  undisciplined,  ill-organized,  and 
unused  to  the  strenuous  work  of  war,  meet  in  battle 
quite  other  things  than  numbers  are  apt  to  be  decisive. 

The  Federal  commanders  reported  a  loss  of  470 
killed,  1,071  wounded  and  1,793  missing — a  total  loss 
of  3,334  men.  The  Confederate  loss  was  officially 
reported  at  387  killed,  1,582  wounded  and  13  missing, 
making  a  total  of  1,982. 


232         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

If  greater  attention  is  here  given  to  this  first  im- 
portant battle  than  to  others  of  larger  magnitude  to 
be  treated  in  future  pages  of  this  work,  it  is  because 
of  the  extraordinary  effect  the  battle  had,  as  will  be 
set  forth  in  the  next  chapter,  and  because  of  the 
pecuHar  danger  to  which  the  Confederate  victory  for 
a  time  subjected  the  Federal  cause. 


CHAPTER  XV 

The  Paralysis  of  Victory 

On  the  evening  of  the  twenty-first  day  of  July, 
1861,  the  Confederate  army  at  Manassas  rested  upon 
one  of  the  completest  and  most  spectacular  victories 
that  had  ever  been  won  by  any  army  over  any  adver- 
sary. The  assailing  army  had  not  only  been  repelled 
— all  possibility  of  resistance  was  gone  from  it.  Not 
only  had  it  been  driven  pell-mell  from  the  field  with 
every  circumstance  of  demoralization  that  could  add 
picturesqueness  to  its  flight,  but  the  uttermost  link 
of  cohesion  that  could  hold  its  battalions  together  for 
any  purpose  of  resistance  was  completely  broken  up 
and  destroyed.  Divisions  were  dissipated,  brigades 
were  broken  into  bits,  regiments  no  longer  existed  and 
even  companies  were  scattered  to  the  winds.  Only 
demoralized  and  panic-stricken  fugitives,  each  madly 
seeking  safety,  remained.  That  which  had  been  a 
most  gallant  "army  with  banners"  at  sunrise  had  be- 
come before  nightfall  a  panic-stricken  mob  without 
possibility  of  cohesion  or  stamina  and  utterly  without 
a  sense  of  soldierly  duty. 

Then  followed  the  strangest  event  of  the  war. 
This  victory,  the  completest,  the  most  picturesque, 
the  most  absolute  that  could  be  imagined,  had  the 
effect  of  paralyzing  the  winners  of  it  to  an  extent  to 
which  even  defeat  could  not  have  done, 

233 


234!'         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

The  story  is  too  strange  and  historically  of  too 
much  import  to  be  told  otherwise  than  in  its  fulness. 

Let  us  first  consider  the  character  and  composition 
of  the  two  armies  that  fought  at  Manassas.  The 
Confederate  volunteers  were  enlisted  for  twelve 
months.  The  term  might  have  been  made  longer 
without  the  loss  of  a  volunteer.  For  these  young 
men,  whatever  their  contract  with  the  Government 
might  stipulate,  fully  intended  to  remain  in  the  serv- 
ice so  long  as  the  war  should  last.  They  felt  it  to  be 
their  own  personal  war  and  most  of  them  had  nothing 
else  to  do  than  fight  it  out  to  the  end,  however  long  it 
might  endure.  Indeed  it  was  certain  that  so  long  as  it 
lasted  no  young  man  of  the  South  could  long  remain 
out  of  the  army  without  incurring  damning  disgrace 
at  home. 

As  a  consequence,  the  organization  of  the  Confed- 
erates when  the  battle  of  Manassas  occurred  was  far 
more  perfect  and  had  far  (more  of  permanency  in  it 
than  was  the  case  with  that  of  McDowell's  forces. 
These  consisted  largely  of  men  who  had  volunteered 
for  no  more  than  a  three  months'  service,  and  the 
terms  of  many  regiments  were  expiring  or  about  to 
expire  when  the  call  to  battle  was  issued.  Many  of 
those  whose  terms  were  at  an  end  turned  back  on  the 
very  eve  of  battle — four  thousand  of  them  quitting 
on  the  day  of  battle  itself.  They  refused  to  partici- 
pate in  the  conflict  because  their  time  was  up. 

This  was  a  manifestation  of  indifference  to  all 
patriotic  and  manly  considerations  such  as  was  no- 
where witnessed  on  the  Southern  side  at  any  time 
during  the  war. 


The  Paralysis  of  Victory  235 

But  let  us  not  judge  too  harshly.  These  young 
men  were  civilians,  not  soldiers.  They  had  enlisted 
only  for  a  period  of  three  months.  They  were  callow 
youths  unaccustomed  to  war.  They  had  regarded  a 
three  months'  service  in  the  volunteers  as  a  sort  of 
exciting  picnic  excursion  to  the  South.  They  had 
done  their  duty  during  the  term  for  which  they  had 
agreed  to  serve,  with  very  tolerable  faithfulness. 
They  had  had  their  outing.  Their  frolic  was  over. 
Their  contract  was  fulfilled.  They  very  naturally 
wanted  to  return  to  their  homes.  When  under  such 
circumstances  a  fierce  battle  confronted  them,  with 
the  enemy  very  manifestly  in  no  "excursion"  mood 
but  bent  upon  all  that  was  possible  of  slaughter,  is  it 
any  wonder  that  these  young  men  faltered  and  failed? 

They  were  scathingly  assailed  in  patriotically  in- 
spired prose  and  verse,  and  certainly  a  similar  turning 
back  on  the  part  of  Southern  youths  on  the  very  eve 
of  battle  would  have  been  punished  with  an  enduring 
and  all-embracing  social  ostracism  harder  to  bear  than 
death.  But  there  were  differences  between  Northern 
and  Southern  sentiment  that  must  be  taken  into  the 
reckoning.  At  the  North  there  was  a  party  more  or 
less  openly  opposing  the  war.  At  the  South  there 
was  none  such.  At  the  North  the  military  impulse 
did  not  inspire  all  minds  as  it  did  at  the  South.  At  the 
North  personal  courage  was  not  held  to  be  the  one 
supreme  test  of  manhood,  as  it  was  at  the  South.  At 
the  North  a  man  might  fail  in  that  and  have  laughter 
for  his  portion,  while  at  the  South  the  punishment  for 
a  like  fault  was  the  eternal  damnation  of  scorn  and 
contempt,  with  universal  social  outlawry  as  an  accom- 


236         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

paniment.  If  any  man  in  Beauregard's  army  had 
gone  home  because  his  enlistment  had  expired  while 
the  battle  was  pending  he  could  never  more  have 
visited  any  neighbor  or  aspired  to  any  woman's  hand ; 
he  would  have  been  everywhere  treated  with  contempt 
and  measureless  scorn.  His  neighbors  would  not 
have  sat  on  the  same  bench  with  him  in  church.  He 
would  have  been  instantly  rejected  as  a  juryman  by 
both  sides  in  every  case.  No  other  crime  that  he 
might  commit  could  have  added  in  the  least  degree  to 
the  depth  of  his  degradation. 

At  the  North  very  different  standards  prevailed. 
The  poets  and  the  newspaper  writers  might  lavish 
opprobrious  epithets  upon  these  young  men  in  a 
collective  capacity  without  mentioning  their  indi- 
vidual names,  but  their  neighbors,  their  sweethearts, 
their  daily  associates  were  not  apt  to  take  so  quixotic 
a  view  of  their  duty  or  so  severely  to  judge  their  con- 
duct. It  must  always  be  borne  in  mind  that  men's 
standards  of  duty  and  obligation  are  apt  to  conform 
in  a  general  way  at  least  to  those  of  their  neighbors. 
In  passing  upon  human  conduct  we  must  be  atten- 
tive to  this  fact  if  we  would  justly  judge. 

As  for  the  men  who  went  into  the  fight  on  the 
Union  side  we  must  remember  that  at  the  end  of  it 
the  companies  and  regiments  and  brigades  of  which 
they  had  formed  a  part  in  the  morning  had  been  dissi- 
pated into  the  thinnest  of  thin  air  at  three  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon  by  the  lightning-like  stroke  of  panic. 
There  were  no  longer  any  companies  left  or  any 
regiments  or  any  brigades  or  any  organizations  of 
any  other  sort.    There  was  no  longer  any  such  thing 


The  Paralysis  of  Victory  237 

as  cohesion  among  them.  There  was  nobody  author- 
ized to  give  orders — nobody  capable  of  enforcing 
obedience.  The  multitude  of  men  who  in  the  morn- 
ing had  seemed  to  constitute  an  army  had  been 
resolved  before  nightfall  into  a  wild-eyed  and  uncon- 
trollable mob  of  irresponsible  fugitives,  intent  only 
upon  seeking  safety,  without  any  regard  whatever  to 
any  obligation  or  impulse,  of  honor  or  duty  or  shame 
— any  impulse  except  the  instinct  of  self-preservation. 

There  were  many  such  panic-stricken  fugitives  on 
the  Confederate  side  also — so  many  that  when  Jeffer- 
son Davis  met  a  mob  of  them  on  his  approach  to  the 
battlefield,  he  was  convinced  that  the  Southern  army 
had  been  defeated  and  broken.  But  these  were  indi- 
viduals merely,  and  while  their  aggregate  was  large, 
it  embraced  no  command,  no  entire  body  of  troops, 
whether  company,  regiment  or  brigade.  The  Con- 
federate commands  remained  intact.  They  preserved 
their  organizations  perfectly  and  remained  absolutely 
obedient  to  orders.  At  the  end  of  the  battle  theirs 
was  not  only  still  an  army;  it  was  an  army  flushed 
with  victory,  illimitably  confident  both  in  itself  and 
in  its  leaders,  eager  for  further  action,  clamorous  for 
advance  and  ready  to  do  and  dare  anything  and 
everything  that  might  promise  further  glory. 

That  army  eagerly  wanted  to  march  at  once  upon 
Washington,  and  there  was  absolutely  no  military 
reason  why  it  should  not  have  done  so.  There  was 
no  fighting  force  to  resist  it  on  the  march.  There 
was  no  force  at  Washington  which  could  have  seri- 
ously disputed  its  entry  into  the  city.  It  could  easily 
have  trampled  to  earth  the  feeble  resistance  it  must 


238         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

have  encountered  at  the  gateways  of  the  capital. 
Stuart,  almost  with  tears  on  his  cheeks,  besought  per- 
mission to  lead  such  an  advance  with  his  handful  of 
cavalry  men,  pledging  his  honor  and  reputation  as  a 
soldier  and  all  that  he  hoped  for  of  a  future  career, 
in  bail  of  his  promise  to  clear  away  every  obstacle 
and  open  an  unobstructed  road  to  the  columns  of 
Beauregard  and  Johnston  in  their  victorious  march 
across  the  Long  Bridge  and  into  the  streets  of  the 
Federal  capital. 

Stuart  was  accustomed  to  boast  that  he  never  used 
profane  language.  But  his  impatient  cavaliers  heard 
and  heartily  echoed  some  strong  words  from  his  lips 
when  finally  the  paralyzing  prohibition  of  an  immedi- 
ate advance  came  to  him  in  the  shape  of  an  order  to 
encamp  his  men  in  a  muddy  cornfield  on  that  rainy 
night,  when  in  his  judgment  they  should  have  been 
gaily  galloping  on  march  for  Washington  as  the  ad- 
vance guard  of  a  victory-inspired  army,  intent  upon 
making  the  most  of  its  success  and  crowning  its 
achievements  with  historic  consequences. 

Stuart  at  least  anticipated  no  difficulty  in  galloping 
into  Washington  and  Stuart's  stalwart  cavaliers  were 
ready  for  any  enterprise  to  which  that  born  leader  of 
men  might  invite  them. 

Those  Virginia  horsemen  had  been  for  ten  consecu- 
tive days  and  nights  forbidden  to  remove  a  saddle. 
For  ten  consecutive  days  and  nights  they  had  stood 
at  the  heads  of  their  horses  at  feeding  time  and  held 
the  temporarily  removed  bridle  bit  in  one  hand  and  the 
ear  of  corn  from  which  the  horse  was  feeding  in  the 
other.     For  ten  consecutive  days  and  nights  those 


The  Paralysis  of  Victory  239 

men  had  been  ceaselessly  in  the  saddle,  their  only 
sleep  being  snatched  in  brief  fragments,  while  their 
horses  were  tethered  to  their  wrists.  Yet  so  eager  were 
they  to  follow  up  this  victory  that  every  man  of  them 
"swore  like  a  trooper"  on  that  Sunday  evening  when 
the  pursuit  was  senselessly  called  off,  and  every  man 
of  them  ejaculated  a  hearty  "amen"  to  their  leader's 
vituperation  of  that  superior  authority  which  forbade 
him  and  his  devoted  cavalry  men  to  ride  into  Wash- 
ington close  upon  the  heels  of  the  broken,  panic- 
stricken  and  utterly  demoralized  Federal  fugitives 
from  the  battlefield. 

There  is  now  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  he  could 
have  done  this.  There  is  not  the  smallest  question 
that  if  he  had  been  permitted  to  do  it,  with  a  support- 
ing column  of  infantry  and  artillery  following  as 
closely  as  it  could  upon  his  horses'  heels,  Washington 
would  have  become  a  Confederate  possession  on  that 
Sunday  night,  and — who  knows  what  else  might  have 
happened?  Perhaps  four  years  of  the  bloodiest  of 
modern  wars  might  have  been  spared  to  the  American 
people. 

However  that  may  be,  the  historian  of  the  Confed- 
erate War  is  bound  to  regard  the  failure  of  the  Con- 
federates to  follow  up  their  victory  and  pursue  their 
broken,  fleeing  and  utterly  disintegrated  enemy  into 
Washington  during  that  night  and  the  next  morning 
as  one  of  the  most  stupendous  blunders  recorded  any- 
where in  history. 

It  was  perfectly  well  known  to  the  two  Confeder- 
ate commanders,  that  Washington  was  not  defended 
on  the  South  by  any  fortifications  which  a  determined 


240  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

assailing  column  could  not  easily  have  run  over. 
There  was  only  one  earthwork,  and  that  an  incom- 
plete one,  in  the  way,  and  it  was  so  little  in  the  way 
that  a  column  moving  upon  the  Federal  capital  could 
easily  have  passed  on  toward  the  city  by  thorough- 
fares that  lay  quite  out  of  the  effective  range  of  its 
guns. 

In  brief  there  was  absolutely  no  conceivable  reason 
for  the  failure  of  the  Confederate  generals  to  follow 
up  their  phenomenal  success  on  the  battlefield  by  an 
instant  and  dramatic  march  upon  their  enemy's  capi- 
tal over  a  road  which  was  obstructed  by  nothing  more 
menacing  or  embarrassing  than  huge  piles  of  aban- 
doned food  supplies. 

General  Beauregard  and  General  Johnston  have 
courageously  and  manfully  assumed  all  responsibility 
for  that  failure  to  advance  at  the  right  and  critical 
moment.  For  a  time  that  failure  was  attributed  to 
the  paralyzing  hand  of  Jefferson  Davis,  who  came 
upon  the  field  near  the  end  of  the  battle.  But  that 
accusation  was  unjust.  Mr.  Davis  has  been  exoner- 
ated from  all  responsibility  for  the  failure  by  the 
deliberately  recorded  testimony  of  his  lieutenants. 
Mr.  Davis  was  in  fact  eager  for  an  immediate 
advance  which  might  crown  the  victory  with  its 
legitimate  consequences.  He  even  dictated  and 
had  written  out  a  peremptory  order  to  that  effect, 
which  Johnston  and  Beauregard  persuaded  him  to 
withhold. 

Their  reasons  for  doing  so  have  been  fully  set 
forth  by  themselves.  In  spite  of  the  facts  that  lay 
before  their  eyes,  they  could  not  believe  in  the  com- 


The  Paralysis  of  Victory  241 

pleteness  of  the  victory  they  had  achieved.  Neither 
had  they  confidence  in  the  army  that  had  won  that 
victory.  They  were  sure  that  it  was  tired.  They 
thought  it  needed  rest.  They  doubted  its  trustwor- 
thiness. They  had  no  adequate  conception  of  its 
enthusiasm  for  the  enterprise  for  which  it  was  clamor- 
ously eager.  It  is  one  of  the  embarrassments  of  war 
that  a  commanding  general  has  sometimes  no  means 
of  knowing  what  the  men  under  his  command  are 
thinking  and  feeling. 

So  far  were  the  two  Confederate  commanders 
from  appreciating  the  magnitude  and  the  complete- 
ness of  their  victory,  that  after  it  was  all  over,  and 
after  events  of  every  kind  had  demonstrated  the  ex- 
tremity of  Federal  demoralization,  they  were  by  their 
own  confession,  frightened  half  out  of  their  wits  by 
the  movement  of  certain  Confederate  forces  which 
they  believed  to  be  a  new  and  determined  advance  by 
the  hopelessly  demoralized  enemy. 

They  ought  to  have  known  better,  of  course;  but 
they  did  not,  and  they  would  not  let  Stuart  teach 
them  better,  though  he,  with  his  preternatural  activity, 
had  followed  the  panic-stricken  fugitives  far  enough 
to  know  what  their  moral  condition  was. 

Let  us  frankly  recognize  facts  and  take  account  of 
them  in  the  reckoning  of  history.  Johnston  and 
Beauregard  were  accomplished  officers,  familiar  with 
every  detail  of  technical  military  duty.  But  neither 
of  them  was  as  yet  experienced  in  the  command  of 
armies  or  the  conduct  of  campaigns.  Until  a  few 
months  before  that  battle  was  fought  they  had  been 
mere  captains  of  engineers.     Neither  had  ever  com- 

M6 


242         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

manded  any  force  greater  than  a  company.  Neither 
had  ever  seen  an  army  of  proportions  half  so  large  as 
those  of  the  force  that  fought  at  Manassas.  Neither 
had  ever  had  even  the  smallest  experience  in  grand 
strategy.  They  were  mere  apprentices  still  in  the  art 
of  war.  They  had  not  yet  fully  learned  their  trade. 
They  utterly  failed  to  understand  what  their  victory 
meant.  They  had  no  conception  of  the  disorganizing, 
disintegrating  eif  ects  of  that  victory  upon  their  ad- 
versaries. They  were  utterly  incapable  of  under- 
standing their  opportunity  or  of  taking  advantage 
of  it.  Because  of  their  inexperience  they  let  slip  the 
finest  opportunity  that  was  at  any  time  afforded  to 
commanders  on  either  side  to  achieve  a  quick  and 
decisive  result. 

With  no  purpose  or  willingness  to  undervalue  the 
ability  or  the  devotion  of  two  officers  who  afterwards 
achieved  well-deserved  distinction  as  the  commanders 
of  armies,  it  may  fairly  be  pointed  out  that  they  were 
in  command  at  Manassas  not  because  of  known  and 
demonstrated  fitness  for  command,  but  solely  because 
of  their  technical  rank  in  the  old,  peace-time  army  of 
the  United  States,  where  promotion  was  exclusively 
by  seniority — perhaps  the  unsafest  ground  of  pro- 
motion that  was  ever  devised  by  the  evil  ingenuity  of 
officialism  and  professional  self-regard.  Whatever 
capacity  these  two  officers  afterwards  developed,  it  is 
very  manifest  that  at  the  time  of  the  Manassas  battle 
they  both  showed  themselves  incapable  of  seizing 
upon  the  opportunity  that  victory  offered  them  in 
any  such  masterful  way  as  that  in  which  Lee  after- 
wards seized  upon  far  less  obvious  opportunities  at 


The  Paralysis  of  Victory  243 

the  end  of  the  Seven  Days'  Battles  and  again  after 
Chancellorsville. 

Having  won  the  completest  and  most  conspicuous 
victory  of  modern  times,  they  set  to  work  to  fortify 
themselves  for  defense  against  the  enemy  they  had 
so  disastrously  overthrown,  precisely  as  if  they  had 
been  beaten  in  the  fight  and  were  called  upon  to  de- 
fend themselves  against  further  aggression  at  the 
hands  of  an  enemy  to  be  feared.  Having  everything 
of  opportunity  their  own  way,  they  threw  it  all  into 
the  adversary's  hands.  Having  reduced  their  enemy's 
army  to  pulp  they  deliberately  gave  him  time  and 
opportunity  to  reconstruct  it,  to  reinforce  it,  to  re- 
organize and  discipline  it,  as  he  presently  did,  into  a 
superb  fighting  machine  instead  of  pushing  forward 
and  fighting  it  vigorously  while  it  possessed  no  fight- 
ing force  at  all. 

Both  sides  in  this  war  suffered  for  a  time  from  this 
paralysis  of  officialism  and  routine  which  set  inferior 
men  to  command  their  superiors  and  balked  conclu- 
sions by  incapacity.  It  will  be  related  later  in  this 
history,  how  Grant — the  most  masterful  man  in  the 
Federal  army — was  long  denied  his  opportunity  by 
the  arbitrary  will  of  the  immeasurably  inferior 
Halleck,  to  whom  a  false  system  and  an  old  man's 
favor  gave  control  in  despite  of  fact  and  achievement. 

At  present  we  deal  only  with  the  facts  of  a  single 
case.  On  the  night  of  July  21,  1861,  and  on  the 
following  morning,  there  was  open  to  the  Confederate 
commanders  at  Manassas  an  opportunity  which 
hopefully  promised  to  bring  the  war  to  an  immediate 
end.    They  utterly  failed  to  embrace  that  opportunity 


244         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

and  the  price  paid  for  their  neglect  was  four  years 
of  bloody  conflict,  involving  the  loss  of  lives  by 
scores  of  thousands  and  the  infliction  of  incalculable 
suff*ering  upon  the  American  people.  At  several 
other  points  in  the  history  of  the  struggle  like  op- 
portunities presented  themselves,  less  conspicuously 
indeed  but  none  the  less  positively,  to  one  side  or  the 
other.  In  many  cases  they  were  similarly  neglected, 
and  the  war  went  on  with  all  its  horrors. 

But  if  we  wonder  at  the  failure  of  the  Confederates 
to  follow  up  their  victory  on  the  evening  of  its 
achievement  and  on  the  days  immediately  following, 
how  much  greater  must  be  our  astonishment  at  their 
failure  to  take  the  initiative  during  the  long  months 
of  inaction  that  followed  it,  or  to  make  any  effort  to 
direct  the  further  progress  of  a  war  upon  the  success 
of  which  their  very  existence  depended! 

The  singularly  complete  victory  at  Manassas  was 
won  on  the  twenty-first  of  July,  1861.  That  was 
almost  at  the  beginning  of  the  season  favorable  to 
military  operations  in  Virginia.  Yet  after  that 
battle  was  over  there  was  no  effort  made  on  either 
side  to  utilize  the  time  in  military  movements  of  any 
kind.  The  Confederates  advanced  to  Fairfax  Court 
House  and  threw  their  pickets  as  far  forward  as 
Mason's  and  Munson's  Hills,  within  a  few  miles  of 
Washington,  but  they  undertook  no  military  opera- 
tions of  importance.  They  inaugurated  no  cam- 
paigns. They  made  no  advance  upon  Washington, 
which  was  the  one  thing  that  ordinary  intelligence 
was  entitled  to  expect  at  their  hands.  They  did  not 
at  all  behave  like  victors.    They  nowhere  assailed  their 


The  Paralysis  of  Victory  245 

enemy.  They  made  no  effort  of  any  kind  to 
strengthen  themselves,  either  by  the  occupation  of 
strategic  positions  or  by  giving  battle  where  battle 
promised  every  chance  of  victory.  They  simply  sat 
still,  and  their  sitting  still  was  one  of  the  most  inex- 
plicable things  that  ever  happened  during  the  Con- 
federate or  any  other  war.  There  were  several  other 
pauses  of  like  kind  during  the  gigantic  struggle,  but 
there  was  none  so  completely  without  an  explanation, 
as  was  this  utter  throwing  away  of  half  a  year  of 
superb  campaigning  weather. 

On  the  Northern  side  the  inaction  was  not  only 
explained  but  justified  by  the  utter  demoralization  of 
the  army  which  had  been  so  terribly  beaten,  and  so 
utterly  disintegrated  at  Manassas.  But  nobody  has 
ever  yet  offered  so  much  as  a  plausible  suggestion  of 
a  reason  for  the  more  astonishing  inaction  of  the  Con- 
federates during  all  that  sunmier  and  autumn,  when 
the  very  causes  of  inaction  on  the  other  side  afforded 
the  utmost  inducement  to  tireless  activity  on  the 
Southern  side.  At  a  time  when  all  that  could  be 
desired  of  achievement  was  freely  open  to  them,  they 
sat  still,  doing  nothing  except  to  aid  their  adversaries 
in  undoing  what  had  been  accomplished  by  hard 
fighting.^ 

McClellan  succeeded  McDowell  in  command  of  the 
Federal  army  during  the  month  of  August.  His 
difficult  problem  was  to  organize  that  army  anew;  to 
create  it  out  of  chaotic  elements  and  in  the  face  of  the 

*  Gen.  Beauregard  insists  that  he  did  indeed  submit  a  plan  of  aggres- 
sive campaign  a  little  while  after  the  battle  but  it  involved  so  much  of 
preparation  that  it  was  rejected  at  Richmond.  As  it  led  to  no  activity 
it  has  no  historic  significance. 


246         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

difficulties  that  were  thrown  in  his  way  by  its  experi- 
ence in  battle.  He  must  give  it  morale.  He  must 
teach  his  soldiers  the  very  primer  lessons  of  military 
service;  he  must  overcome  their  phenomenal  demoral- 
ization and  gradually  mold  them  into  a  shape  fit  to 
take  the  field. 

An  alert  enemy,  under  such  circumstances,  would 
have  insisted  upon  interfering,  morning,  noon  and 
night,  with  the  exercises  of  the  adversary's  military 
kindergarten.  A  commander  on  the  Confederate 
side,  possessed  of  large  capacity  and  energy,  would 
have  interrupted  the  work  of  McClellan  by  daily  and 
disturbing  incursions  in  force;  or  more  probably  still 
he  would  have  crossed  the  Potomac,  and  forced 
McClellan  to  accept  battle  in  Maryland  or  Pennsyl- 
vania with  his  utterly  untrained  and  badly  demoral- 
ized volunteers.  All  of  this  was  so  obvious  that 
dulness  itself  must  have  seen  it.  Yet  the  two  Con- 
federate generals  at  Manassas  and  Centreville  seem 
never  to  have  opened  their  eyes  to  the  opportunity, 
and  so  nothing  in  this  way  was  done. 

In  the  meanwhile,  McClellan  was  diligently 
strengthening  himself.  He  was  daily  adding  to  his 
forces  those  new  levies  of  volunteers  which  came 
freely  from  the  North  in  spite  of  the  disaster  at 
Manassas.  He  was  also  strengthening  the  fortifica- 
tions at  Washington  in  a  way  that  made  their  con- 
quest forever  afterwards  a  hopeless  enterprise.  He 
sent  out  many  columns  to  one  point  and  another,  not 
to  bring  on  battle,  but  to  practice  his  men  in  the  school 
of  the  soldier,  and  to  use  them  to  "standing  fire"  with- 
out  flinching. 


The  Paralysis  of  Victory  247 

Incidentally,  these  operations  brought  on  only  one 
action  of  considerable  moment,  that  which  occurred 
at  Leesburg  or  Ball's  Bluff  on  the  Potomac,  on  the 
twenty-first  of  October.  It  was  an  action  involving 
rather  heavy  losses  particularly  to  the  Federal  troops, 
but  it  had  no  strategic  significance  whatever.  Mili- 
tary critics  have  not  been  able  to  conjecture  why  the 
action  was  brought  on  at  all. 

Under  orders  of  General  C.  P.  Stone,  Colonel 
Baker  crossed  the  Potomac  near  Leesburg  to  recon- 
noiter  at  a  point  where  no  reconnoissance  was  needed, 
and  where  no  action  could  by  any  possibility  have 
aught  of  significance  or  consequence.  Colonel  Baker 
was  disastrously  defeated  and  killed.  The  Union 
troops  were  driven  into  the  river,  and  large  numbers 
of  them  were  drowned.  The  effect  of  the  action  was 
to  increase  rather  than  diminish  the  demoralization 
that  the  Manassas  battle  had  wrought  in  the  Union 
army,  and  to  increase  in  like  proportion  the  self-con- 
fidence of  the  Confederates — all  but  their  generals. 
Even  after  this  second  victory  they  did  not  push  their 
columns  across  the  Potomac. 

To  the  like  result  all  the  minor  actions  of  that  time 
contributed.  McClellan  sent  out  forces  to  Draines- 
ville,  to  Falls  Church,  to  Vienna,  and  to  other  points, 
with  the  distinct  purpose,  as  he  himself  afterwards 
explained,  of  accustoming  his  demoralized  battalions 
and  his  newly  enlisted  men  to  the  idea  of  fighting.  In 
every  instance  Stuart  assailed  them  promptly  and 
vigorously,  and  in  every  instance  except  at  Draines- 
ville,  where  they  stood  their  ground  well,  they  ran  to 
cover  with  a  precipitancy  which. convinced  the  Con- 


248         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

federates  that  there  was  no  stability  in  them,  no 
nerve,  no  soldierly  quality  whatever.  How  great  a 
mistake  this  was,  the  subsequent  actions  of  the  war 
served  to  demonstrate — actions  in  which  these  same 
men,  properly  organized  and  disciplined,  grandly  and 
gallantly  played  the  part  of  soldiers. 

Apart  from  these  insignificant  contests,  the  war  in 
Virginia  went  to  sleep  after  the  battle  of  Manassas, 
and  to  an  expectant  world  was  presented  the  spectacle 
of  a  phenomenally  victorious  army  taking  a  siesta 
upon  its  arms,  while  its  adversaries  recruited  and 
drilled  and  fortified,  and  in  every  other  conceivable 
way  strengthened  themselves  for  the  future.  In 
brief  the  victor — ^the  most  complete  and  conspicuous 
victor  in  all  the  history  of  the  war — Shaving  utterly 
crushed  his  adversary,  and  having  for  the  time  being 
destroyed  in  that  adversary  all  capacity  for  resist- 
ance, meekly  adopted  the  attitude  of  the  vanquished. 
An  army  flushed  with  victory,  an  army  that  had  com- 
pletely destroyed  the  fighting  force  of  its  enemy,  sat 
down  behind  earthworks  and  waited  for  more  than 
half  a  year  for  that  enemy  to  recuperate  and  choose 
at  its  leisure  the  next  date  and  place  of  its  fighting. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  characterize  all  this  inactivity 
in  harsh  terms.  Its  stupidity  needs  no  emphasis  of 
rhetoric.  The  only  excuse  that  history  can  find  for 
the  phenomenal  failure  to  compel  results  either  in 
July  or  later,  is  the  fact  that  Beauregard  and 
Johnston  were  merely  two  ex-captains,  who  had  had 
no  experience  in  the  command  of  armies  or  in  the  con- 
duct of  great  campaigns. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

The  European  Menace 

While  the  Southern  army  indulged  in  its  siesta 
after  its  victory,  and  seemed  to  wait  for  the  war  to 
come  to  an  end  of  its  own  accord,  the  North  was 
stirred  by  that  event  into  more  strenuous  activity. 
Fresh  levies  were  called  for,  and  volunteers  by  scores 
of  thousands  eagerly  responded  to  the  call.  New 
energy  was  brought  to  bear  upon  the  fortification  of 
Washington,  so  that  the  capital  city  might  never 
again  be  in  such  danger  of  hostile  conquest  as  it  had 
been  on  that  fateful  twenty-first  day  of  July,  and 
for  a  dangerously  considerable  time  afterwards. 

Multitudes  of  the  fugitives  from  the  Manassas 
battle  never  returned  to  their  duty.  In  many  cases 
their  term  of  service  expired  about  that  time,  so  that 
they  could  not  be  brought  back  by  virtue  of  any  law, 
civil  or  military.  In  other  cases  it  was  not  thought 
worth  while  to  drag  back  into  the  service  men  whose 
demoralization  was  too  complete  to  admit  of  the  hope 
that  they  might  ever  again  be  made  eif  ective  soldiers. 
But  their  places  were  promptly  taken  by  eager,  patri- 
otic young  men,  and  General  McClellan,  with  that 
rare  capacity  for  organizing  which  was  the  distin- 
guishing characteristic  of  his  genius,  molded  the  raw 
levies  with  almost  incredible  rapidity  into  effective 
regiments  and  brigades,  a  task  in  which,  as  has  already 
been  shown,  the  Confederates  mightily  aided  him. 


250         History  of^  the  Confederate  War 

But  in  the  meanwhile,  the  victory  of  the  Confeder- 
ates very  seriously  threatened  the  Federal  cause  with 
a  new  and  terrible  danger — ^namely,  the  danger  of  the 
recognition  of  the  Southern  Confederacy  as  an  inde- 
pendent power.  Great  European  nations  under  the 
lead  of  France  and  England  had  already  recognized 
the  claim  of  the  Southern  armies  to  belligerent  rights. 
That  was  a  measure  of  humanity  and  civilization  so 
obviously  proper  and  necessary  that  while  it  tempo- 
rarily angered  the  North,  and  was  construed  there  as 
an  unfriendly  act,  it  was  presently  and  of  necessity  ac- 
cepted by  the  Federal  Government  which,  in  its  turn, 
made  an  informal  but  none  the  less  effective  recog- 
nition of  belligerent  rights  on  the  part  of  the  South- 
ern armies.  Without  such  recognition  it  would  have 
been  impossible  to  carry  on  the  war  upon  anything 
like  civilized  lines.  Without  it  no  prisoner  could  have 
been  exchanged,  no  flag  of  truce  could  have  been 
recognized,  no  cartels  could  have  been  agreed  upon, 
no  safe-conducts  could  have  been  respected — in  short, 
without  such  Federal  recognition  of  belligerent 
rights  on  the  part  of  the  Southerners  the  struggle 
must  have  speedily  degenerated  into  a  savage  contest. 
All  prisoners  in  that  case  would  have  been  at  the 
mercy  of  their  captors  to  do  with  as  they  pleased. 
There  would  have  been  no  possible  opportunity  for 
negotiation  or  for  the  interchange  of  any  of  those 
amenities,  by  means  of  which  the  horrors  of  war  are 
so  greatly  mitigated  to  individuals.  There  could  have 
been  no  paroles.  On  both  sides  the  prisoners  would 
have  been  in  the  position  of  captives  to  a  savage  foe, 
responsible  in  no  way  to  civilization. 


The  European  Menace  251 

The  recognition  of  Southern  belligerency  was  so 
obviously  a  necessity  of  civilization  that  the  Federal 
commanders  had  already  assumed  it,  quite  as  a  matter 
of  course,  from  the  beginning,  and  they  had  daily 
acted  upon  it.  But  the  people,  uninstructed  as  they 
were  in  military  law,  deeply  resented  England's  act 
in  recognizing  it.  They  regarded  that  act  as  scarcely 
less  hostile  than  would  have  been  the  formal  recogni- 
tion of  the  Southern  Confederacy  as  an  independent 
nation. 

After  the  battle  of  Manassas  there  was  very  serious 
danger  of  even  such  a  recognition  as  that.  The 
South  eagerly  hoped  for  it  and  the  North  greatly 
feared  its  coming. 

At  that  time  England,  France  and  Germany  were 
looking  with  very  jealous  suspicion  upon  the  rising 
glory  of  the  American  Republic.  Their  monarchs 
feared  the  influence  of  Democratic  doctrines  sup- 
ported by  such  an  object  lesson  as  the  prosperity  and 
phenomenal  growth  of  the  American  nation  afforded. 
The  tradesmen  and  manufacturers  of  those  countries, 
equally  with  their  statesmen,  dimly  but  apprehens- 
ively foresaw  what  has  since  in  our  later  time  come 
to  pass.  They  foresaw  the  conquest  of  the  world's 
markets  by  American  industry.  To  break  up  this 
American  Union  meant  for  them  a  release  from  these 
dangers,  political,  commercial  and  industrial. 

Moreover,  the  United  States  Government  was  at 
that  time  just  entering  upon  a  new  and  extreme 
policy  of  protective  tariff  exclusion  which  threatened 
very  serious  detriment  to  the  trade  of  the  manufactur- 
ing countries  of  Europe.    The  South,  being  an  agri- 


252         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

cultural  country  with  scarcely  any  manufacturing 
interests,  stood  for  the  utmost  possible  freedom  of 
trade.  Very  naturally,  the  manufacturing  and  com- 
mercial nations  of  Europe  looked  with  more  or  less 
favor  upon  a  revolution  in  this  country,  which  prom- 
ised to  give  them  not  only  an  equal  commercial 
chance  but  a  sentimental  advantage  also  in  the  South- 
ern markets  in  competition  with  the  New  England 
fabricators  of  goods,  wares  and  merchandise. 

From  the  very  beginning,  the  South  had  looked  to 
such  impulses  and  interests  as  these  as  an  offset  to 
Northern  superiority  in  numbers  and  resources. 
The  South  hoped  from  the  beginning  for  foreign 
intervention.  It  was  confidently  believed  that  if  any 
European  nation  should  formally  recognize  the 
Southern  Confederacy's  independence,  the  United* 
States  would  treat  that  recognition  as  equivalent  to 
an  open  declaration  of  war.  In  such  an  event  the 
recognizing  nation  must  of  course  send  its  fleets  to 
raise  the  blockade  of  Southern  ports,  and  possibly 
also  its  battalions  to  stand  shoulder  to  shoulder  with 
the  Virginians  and  Carolinians  and  Mississippians  on 
hard  fought  battle  fields. 

The  Confederate  victory  at  Manassas,  by  reason 
of  its  completeness  and  still  more  by  reason  of  its 
spectacular  accompaniments,  gave  peculiar  force  to 
all  these  arguments  in  favor  of  that  European  recog- 
nition of  Southern  independence  which  must  have 
threatened  the  final  disruption  of  the  American 
Union,  the  breaking  down  of  the  most  dangerous 
trade  rival  of  those  countries,  the  opening  of  the 
South  to  absolute  free  trade,  with  a  distinct  prefer- 


The  European  Menace  253 

ence  for  English,  French  and  German  over  "Yan- 
kee" goods,  and  the  political  weakening  of  that 
growing  impulse  to  republicanism  which  resided  in  the 
glory  and  greatness  of  the  American  Republic.  To 
dissolve  and  destroy  the  Union  would  have  been  once 
and  for  all  time  to  make  an  end  of  the  most  potent 
influence  that  ever  existed  on  earth  in  behalf  of  a 
"world  without  kings,  and  a  people  supreme." 

When  the  battle  of  Manassas  was  done,  and 
McDowell's  army  had  fled  in  panic  as  a  disorganized 
mob  into  Washington,  and  was  manifestly  prepared 
to  flee  farther  if  it  should  be  pressed  with  vigor,  as 
every  foreign  observer  expected  that  it  would  be, 
there  was  every  inducement  and  every  excuse  for  the 
recognition  of  the  Southern  Confederacy  by  Euro- 
pean nations,  and  for  their  demand  that  the  still 
ineffective  blockade  should  be  raised  as  an  unjustifi- 
able interference  with  international  commerce.  Such 
action  on  the  part  of  France  and  England  would 
undoubtedly  have  precipitated  war  between  those 
countries  and  the  United  States,  and  in  that  war, 
knowing  as  we  do  the  relations  then  existing  between 
European  nations,  Austria,  Italy  and  Prussia  would 
very  probably  have  joined.  What  the  consequences 
would  have  been  each  reader  must  judge  for  himself, 
but  at  the  very  least  it  may  be  said  with  entire  safety 
that  such  a  circumstance  would  have  added  very 
greatly  to  the  embarrassment  of  the  United  States 
Government,  and  to  the  chances  of  ultimate  success 
on  the  part  of  the  South. 

The  pretender  who  sat  at  that  time  upon  the  fraud- 
buttressed    throne    of   France    and    called   himself 


254         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

"Napoleon  III"  was  ready  and  eager  for  such  inter- 
ference. But  he  dared  not  undertake  it  single 
handed.  He  sought  the  alliance  and  aid  of  England, 
and  without  doubt  he  would  have  secured  both  but 
for  one  fact.  Whatever  policies  an  English  govern- 
ment may  favor,  there  is  always  behind  that  govern- 
ment, as  its  master,  the  sentiment  of  the  British  peo- 
ple, and  that  sentiment  was  at  that  time  unalterably 
and  implacably  hostile  to  human  slavery. 

It  was  the  misfortune  of  the  South  that  its  con- 
tention for  its  own  right  of  self-government  was  in- 
separably linked  in  the  minds  of  men  abroad  with  the 
cause  of  human  bondage,  against  which  British  public 
sentiment  revolted. 

Great  Britain  is  not  a  republic  in  our  sense  of  the 
word,  but  under  all  its  forms  of  monarchy,  and  with 
all  its  embarrassments  of  aristocratic  privilege,  its 
people  actually  and  absolutely  rule. 

Its  people  strongly  sympathized  with  the  Southern 
claim  of  a  right  of  autonomy.  They  still  more 
strongly  sympathized  with  themselves  in  their  desire 
to  cripple  their  greatest  and  most  threatening  com- 
mercial and  industrial  rival,  and  to  get  all  the  cotton 
they  needed  for  their  mills.  They  wanted  the  war 
to  end  quickly.  They  wanted  the  Southern  ports 
opened  to  their  ships,  and  the  Southern  cotton  to  be 
accessible  again  for  their  use.  They  wanted  the 
American  Union  broken  up.  They  wanted  to  trade 
with  the  Southern  States  upon  equal  terms  or  with  a 
positive  advantage  over  their  New  England  com- 
petitors. But  even  for  such  sake  they  were  unwilling 
to  lend  the  power  of  Great  Britain  to  the  perpetua- 
tion of  human  slavery  anywhere  upon  earth. 


The  European  Menace  255 

There  was  the  fatal  miscalculation  of  the  South- 
erners. They  reckoned  with  British  trade  interests, 
with  British  and  other  European  political  prejudice, 
but  they  did  not  sufficiently  reckon  with  that  British 
hostility  to  slavery  which — whatever  the  political  or 
trade  considerations  might  be — would  not  consent  to 
any  action  on  the  part  of  a  British  government  which 
should  even  seem  to  make  Great  Britain  responsible 
for  the  perpetuation  of  human  slavery  anywhere. 

Thus  the  British  government  was  restrained  by  the 
all-dominating  British  sentiment  from  interfering, 
and  France  did  not  venture  to  interfere  alone  or  even 
with  the  probability  of  Austrian  or  Prussian  support. 

There  was  Russia  to  be  reckoned  with,  also,  and  as 
later  official  publications  show,  the  Czar  not  only  set 
his  face  against  intervention  in  behalf  of  the  South, 
but  at  one  critical  time  actually  sent  his  fleets  to 
American  waters  to  menace  any  and  every  power  that 
might  assume  to  interpose  to  the  detriment  of  the 
United  States. 

At  the  time,  however,  the  Manassas  victory  gave 
great  and  well- justified  occasion  for  the  fear  at  the 
North  that  Great  Britain  and  Firance,  backed  by  the 
other  western  European  powers,  might  be  persuaded 
to  interpose  in  behalf  of  the  Confederates.  For  a 
time,  therefore,  the  outlook  for  the  Union  was  a  very 
gloomy  one,  but  the  youth  of  the  country  continued 
to  enlist  by  tens  and  scores  of  thousands,  and  in  spite 
of  the  hostility  of  a  political  party  strongly  opposed 
to  the  administration  and  to  the  war  itself,  Mr. 
[Lincoln's  government  went  on  with  its  preparations 
for  prosecuting  the  war  with  vigor,  to  its  predestined 
end. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

Border  Operations 

During  the  long  period  of  strange  inactivity  in 
those  parts  of  the  country  where  the  real  seat  of  war 
lay,  there  was  a  good  deal  of  active  fighting  else- 
where. Some  of  it  was  severe  and  gave  rise  to 
stirring  events,  including  some  stoutly  contested 
battles.  But  with  the  exception  of  the  operations 
upon  the  Southern  coasts  in  aid  of  a  more  effective 
blockade  none  of  these  conflicts  had  any  considerable 
strategic  importance  and  the  story  of  them  may  with 
propriety  be  briefly  told. 

In  Missouri  the  contest  was  in  effect  a  civil  war,  in 
the  strict  acceptation  of  that  term.  It  is  needless 
and  it  would  be  tedious  to  recount  here  the  procla- 
mations, the  gubernatorial  manifestos,  the  legisla- 
tive resolutions  and  the  so-called  conventional  action 
of  that  state.  None  of  these  had  any  undisputed  le- 
gal sanction  whatever,  though  each  of  them  claimed 
all  possible  legality.  The  simple  fact  was  that  a 
part  of  Missouri's  people  adhered  to  the  Union  and 
another  part  equally  clung  to  the  cause  of  the 
Southern  Confederacy.  After  much  confusion  the 
Unionists  formed  an  army  under  General  Lyon 
and  the  Confederates  assembled  a  strong  force  under 
General  Price.  Let  the  lawyers  quibble  as  they  please 
over  the  technicalities  involved,  the  fact  remains  as 

256 


Border  Operations  257 

already  stated,  that  the  people  of  Missouri  were 
divided  in  sentiment;  that  they  arrayed  themselves 
against  each  other  in  hostile  armies;  and  that  they 
fought  each  other  in  considerable  battles — ^measured 
by  the  number  of  men  engaged  and  by  the  slaughter 
involved.  But  these  battles  bore  no  influential  rela- 
tion to  the  contest  between  the  Union  and  the  Confed- 
eracy, except  in  so  far  as  their  conduct  served  to 
occupy  troops  on  either  side  who  might  have  been 
much  more  effectively  employed  at  those  more  east- 
ern points  at  which  the  issue  was  in  fact  to  be  fought 
out  to  a  conclusion. 

At  Carthage,  Missouri,  where  General  Franz  Sigel 
attacked  the  Confederates  on  July  fifth,  1861,  the 
Federals  were  beaten  and  forced  to  retreat.  At  Dug 
Spring,  August  third,  Lyon  defeated  McCuUoch,  but 
a  week  later  (August  the  tenth),  the  Federals  were 
again  defeated  in  a  severely  contested  battle  at  Wil- 
son's Creek,  and  General  Lyon  was  killed. 

On  the  fifth  of  March,  1862,  the  two  armies  west 
of  the  Mississippi  met  in  a  pitched  battle  at  Pea 
Ridge,  Arkansas.  The  contest  was  a  fierce  and 
bloody  one,  involving  a  heavy,  though  unascertained 
loss.  The  Federals  had  distinctly  the  better  of  it,  but 
like  the  Confederates  at  Manassas,  they  utterly  failed 
to  follow  up  their  victory  or  in  any  other  way  to  give 
effect  to  it. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  relate  the  story  of  these  battles 
in  detail.  They  were  gallant  and  strenuous  actions, 
reflecting  the  highest  credit  upon  the  courage  of  the 
officers  and  men  engaged  on  either  side.  But  they 
contributed  nothing  whatever  to  the  ultimate  result. 

I-I7 


258         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

They  played  no  part  in  the  solution  of  the  war  prob- 
lem. Whether  the  actions  so  gallantly  fought  by 
Federals  and  Confederates  alike  were  won  by  the 
one  or  by  the  other,  made  no  difference  in  the  ultimate 
outcome  of  a  war  which  was  clearly  destined  to  be 
decided  by  other  men  and  upon  other  fields  of  larger 
strategic  significance. 

The  operations  in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  though 
smaller  in  themselves,  were  of  much  greater  im- 
portance. Those  states  lay  within  the  strategic  field. 
Kentucky  had  officially  assumed  an  attitude  of  neu- 
trality, as  has  already  been  related,  to  which  neither 
side  paid  or  could  be  expected  to  pay  the  smallest 
attention.  That  state  lay  between  the  North  and  the 
South.  It  was  absolutely  necessary  that  each  should 
push  armed  forces  into  and  across  its  domain  in  order 
to  get  at  the  forces  of  the  adversary.  Moreover,  Ken- 
tucky's assumption  of  neutrality  was  a  transparent 
absurdity  in  itself.  If  it  could  have  commanded  re- 
spect, it  would  have  interposed  a  neutral  ground, 
stretching  for  about  four  hundred  miles  from  east 
to  west  between  the  contending  armies,  neither  of 
which  would  have  been  privileged  on  any  account  to 
cross  it  or  to  enter  it.  Thus  Kentucky,  while  retain- 
ing its  place  as  a  state  in  the  Union,  would  have  stood 
as  a  protective  barrier  to  the  seceding  states,  of  even 
greater  value  than  all  the  armies  that  could  have  been 
assembled  within  Kentucky's  borders.  It  would  at 
one  and  the  same  time  have  held  the  position  of  a 
state  in  the  Union  and  the  most  potent  of  all  states  in 
aid  of  the  Confederacy. 

It  is  necessary  to  explain  that  this  Kentucky  reso- 


Border  Operations  259 

lution  of  neutrality  never  had  the  complete  legal  sanc- 
tion of  the  state  authorities,  actual  or  pretended;  but 
its  effect  was  so  small  that  it  is  scarcely  worth  while 
to  discuss  the  technicalities.  The  simple  fact  was  that 
Kentucky  furnished  men  to  both  sides  and  that  its 
legislative  and  its  executive  authorities  were  never  at 
any  time  fully  and  legally  agreed  upon  any  policy 
whatever. 

In  a  history  that  takes  account  of  facts  rather  than 
of  theories,  of  events  rather  than  of  resolutions,  there 
seems  no  occasion  to  follow  this  subject  further, 
except  to  say  that  both  Federals  and  Confederates 
presently  pushed  their  armies  into  Kentucky  and  tried 
conclusions  there,  with  results  that  must  form  the 
subject  of  future  pages  in  this  history. 

In  Maryland  the  struggle  ended  in  the  adherence 
of  the  state  to  the  Union,  while  a  large  part  of  its 
vigorous  young  manhood  went  South  and  enlisted  in 
the  Confederate  army.  It  was  this  division  of  senti- 
ment, this  separation  of  families,  this  arraying  of 
brother  against  brother,  that  constituted  the  tragedy 
of  the  Confederate  war. 

In  North  Carolina  and  in  Tennessee  there  was  a 
strong  Union  sentiment  among  the  mountaineers.  It 
could  not  control  either  state,  but  it  resulted  in  the 
enlistment  of  a  large  number  of  hardy  volunteers  in 
the  Union  armies,  and  in  the  organization  of  an 
efficient  "underground  railroad,"  by  means  of  which 
ONTorthern  soldiers  escaping  from  Southern  prisons 
were  aided  in  their  journey  to  the  North. 

In  Virginia  the  anti-secession  sentiment  found  ex- 
pression in  an  act  of  secession  from  secession.     The 


260         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

western  Half  of  that  state  had  scarcely  any  property; 
interest  in  slavery  and  scarcely  any  sympathy  with  the 
institution.  The  men  of  that  region  had  accepted  the 
teachings  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  and  George  Wythe, 
and  a  score  of  other  Virginian  statesmen,  to  the  effect 
that  slavery  was  a  curse  which  it  was  their  duty  to  ex- 
tirpate as  soon  as  might  be.  The  secession  of  their 
state  seemed  to  offer  them  an  opportunity.  If  seces- 
sion was  to  be  the  order  of  the  day,  why  should  not 
they,  as  representatives  of  the  western  and  non-slave- 
holding  half  of  their  state,  repudiate  secession  from 
the  Union  by  themselves  seceding  from  their  seceding 
state? 

Upon  this  hint  they  acted.  They  proceded  to  set 
up  the  state  of  West  Virginia  under  an  autonomy, 
granted  by  the  National  Government.  It  was  in 
direct  violation  of  the  Federal  Constitution  thus  to 
divide  a  state  without  its  own  consent,  but  the  thing 
was  done  in  war  time,  and  when  war  is  on  the  rigid 
letter  of  the  law  is  very  apt  to  be  disregarded  in  the 
interest  of  general  results.  At  any  rate  the  thing 
was  done,  and  West  Virginia  has  ever  since  1863  held 
her  place  as  one  of  the  states  of  the  Union. 

Thus  were  the  border  states  arrayed  in  the  war. 
Thus  was  the  issue  made  up.  Thus  were  the  lines 
drawn  for  the  momentous  conflict. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

The  Blockade — the  Conquest  of  the  Coast  and 

THE  Neglect  to  Follow  up  the  Advantage 

THUS  Gained 

As  soon  as  the  fact  was  recognized  that  war  existed 
between  the  Northern  and  the  Southern  states  it  was 
quite  a  matter  of  course  and  of  common  sense  that  the 
Federal  Government  should  endeavor  to  shut  in  the 
Confederates  by  a  blockade  that  should  cut  them  off 
from  all  commerce  with  the  outer  world. 

The  South  was  almost  exclusively  an  agricultural 
country.  It  had  scanty  means  of  supplying  itself 
with  any  of  those  articles  of  manufacture  which  en- 
able communities  to  live  and  to  carry  on  war.  It  was 
sadly  deficient  not  only  in  capacity  to  create  arms, 
ammunition,  and  other  fighting  equipments,  but  also 
in  factories  capable  of  turning  out  clothing,  shoes, 
medicines,  and  the  like  either  for  military  or  for  non- 
military  use. 

For  all  these  things  the  Confederates  depended 
upon  importation,  and  the  obvious  policy  of  the  Fed- 
eral Government  was  to  prevent  such  importation. 

If  that  could  have  been  completely  done,  the  war 
must  of  necessity  have  come  to  an  early  and  merciful 
end.  And  there  is  no  doubt  that  it  might  have  been 
done  during  the  first  years  of  the  struggle  if  practical 
common  sense  had  been  reinforced  by  executive  abil- 

261 


262         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

ity  commensurate  with  the  demands  of  the  occasion. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  this  was  never  completely  accom- 
plished until  the  war  was  in  its  last  throes.  To  the 
very  end  the  Confederate  soldiers  were  clad  in  Eng- 
lish-made cloth,  shod  with  English-tanned  leather,  and 
largely  fed  upon  Cincinnati  bacon  and  corned  beef 
which  had  been  shipped  to  Nassau  in  the  Bahamas 
and  thence  carried  into  Confederate  ports  by  the  dar- 
ing of  the  English  captains  and  the  English  crews 
of  English-built  and  English-owned  blockade  run- 
ning steamers.  Very  naturally  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment understood  and  appreciated  all  these  conditions, 
and  very  naturally  it  sought  to  take  advantage  of 
them  by  blockading  Southern  ports  and  thus  pre- 
venting or  at  least  embarrassing  those  importations 
upon  which  the  South  must  mainly  depend  for  its 
powder,  its  bullets,  its  clothing,  its  shoes,  its  arms  and 
its  provisions. 

Accordingly,  one  of  the  earliest  acts  of  the  Admin- 
istration was  the  proclamation  of  a  blockade  of  the 
Southern  ports.  This  was  issued  as  early  as  the  nine- 
teenth of  April,  1861,  two  days  after  the  Virginia 
Convention  adopted  an  ordinance  of  secession  and 
thus  made  war  a  certainty. 

There  is  this  peculiarity  about  the  international 
law  of  blockade,  that  the  ships  of  no  nation  are  under 
obligation  to  respect  a  blockade  until  it  shall  be  made 
effective.  That  is  to  say,  until  the  nation  proclaim- 
ing the  blockade  can  put  a  sufficient  naval  force  at 
the  mouth  of  each  blockaded  harbor  to  prevent  the 
entry  of  ships,  no  foreign  shipmasters  are  bound  to 
respect  the  proclamation  of  blockade,  and  their  block- 


The  Blockade  263 

ade-running  ships  are  not  subject  to  seizure  in  the 
attempt  to  pass  the  paper  barriers  erected. 

At  the  first,  of  course,  the  blockade  of  Southern 
ports  was  technical  rather  than  real.  A  foreign  ship 
running  in  or  out  was  not  legally  subject  to  seizure 
or  destruction  because  the  blockade  was  manifestly 
ineffective.  But  by  impressing  ferry-boats  and  every 
other  craft  that  could  carry  guns  into  the  naval  serv- 
ice, the  Federal  Government  was  able  presently  to 
make  its  blockade  so  far  effective  that  those  ships 
which  essayed  to  "run"  it  did  so  at  risk  of  capture 
and  with  the  certainty  that  capture  must  mean  the 
confiscation  of  both  ship  and  cargo. 

But  so  profitable  was  this  commerce  that  the  mer- 
chants and  shipmasters  engaged  in  it  were  ready  to 
take  all  the  risks  involved,  for  the  sake  of  its  enor- 
mous pecuniary  returns.  It  was  a  matter  of  easy 
reckoning  that  a  single  cargo  carried  either  way  and 
successfully  delivered,  would  pay  for  the  loss  of  the 
ship  and  cargo  on  the  return  voyage,  and  leave  a  rich 
margin  of  profit  besides. 

Moreover  a  close  blockade  was  simply  impossible. 
Not  one  ship  in  a  dozen  that  attempted  to  pass  out  or 
in,  was  in  actual  fact  captured  or  driven  ashore.  The 
number  of  ships  engaged  in  blockade  running  was 
steadily  reduced  by  the  increasing  dangers  encoun- 
tered, but  the  traffic  continued,  with  no  effective  in- 
terruption, until  near  the  end  of  the  war,  the  chief 
effect  of  the  blockade  being  to  increase  the  profits  of 
the  English  shipowners  and  shipmasters  who  engaged 
in  the  perilous  commerce  and  enormously  to  enhance 
the  market  value  of  goods  of  every  kind  at  the  South. 


264         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

An  ounce  of  quinine  that  cost  $2.80  in  Nassau  was 
worth  $1,100  or  $1,200  in  Charleston,  while  the  Con- 
federate money  received  for  the  quinine  would  buy 
cotton  at  ten  cents  a  pound  which  had  a  value  at  the 
very  least  of  half  a  dollar  a  pound  in  gold  at  Nassau. 
On  such  terms  the  human  instinct  of  gain  made  it 
certain  that  the  blockade,  however  legally  effective  it 
might  be  made,  would  be  broken  through  by  daring 
shipmasters  so  long  as  the  war  should  last  and  pre- 
cisely that  is  what  in  fact  happened. 

But  in  aid  of  the  blockade,  and  in  aid  of  the  gen- 
eral policy  of  shutting  the  South  in  and  compelling 
it  to  rely  exclusively  upon  its  own  inadequate  re- 
sources,   the    Federal    Government    promptly    dis- 
patched forces  to  the  South,  to  capture  the  seacoast 
fortifications  there  and  to  make  of  the  coast  a  Federal 
instead  of  a  Confederate  possession  and  stronghold. 
On  the  twenty-ninth  of  August,  1861,  an  expedition 
under  command  of  General  B.  F.  Butler,  captured 
the  forts  at  Cape  Hatteras.     On  the  seventh  and 
eighth  of  November  another  expedition  reduced  the 
works  at  Port  Royal  and  Hilton  Head  in  South  Caro- 
lina, thus  making  of  the  coast  strongholds  important 
strategic  positions  for  the  Northern  arms.    Later  the 
whole  coast,  except  the  great  harbor,  was  conquered. 
It  must  always  be  a  matter  of  astonishment  to  the 
historian  that  greater  use  was  not  made  of  the  ad- 
vantages thus  gained  at  the  beginning  of  the  war.    It 
is  true  that  the  geography  of  the  Carolinian  coast 
country  specially  lent  itself  to  the  defense  of  that 
region  by  small  forces  arrayed  against  greatly  su- 
perior numbers.     It  is  true,  for  example,  that  at 


The  Blockade  265 

Pocotatigo,  on  the  twenty-second  of  Uctober,  1862, 
two  batteries  of  artillery  and  a  company  or  two  of 
dismounted  cavalry  numbering  in  all  only  350  men, 
being  reinforced  late  in  the  day  by  about  four  hun- 
dred more,  succeeded  in  repelling  the  all-day  assault 
of  not  less  than  three  thousand  and  ended  by  driving 
the  Federal  force  back  to  its  ships.  This  was  due  in 
part  to  the  peculiarly  defensive  nature  of  the  ground 
and  in  part  to  the  certainty  that  the  Federal  forces 
could  not  remain  over  night  at  Pocotatigo  without 
finding  nearly  every  man  among  them  stricken  with 
that  dire  disease,  "country  fever,"  before  morning. 

But  all  day  long  at  Pocotatigo  the  Federals  had 
the  Charleston  and  Savannah  railroad  on  their  left 
less  than  a  mile  away  and  with  absolutely  no  obstacle 
whatsoever  between  them  and  its  possession.  Beyond 
the  railroad  line  lay  the  high,  healthful  pine  lands. 
In  brief  there  was  no  reason  whatever,  aside  from 
mere  blundering,  why  they  should  not  then  and  there 
have  seized  upon  the  Charleston  and  Savannah  rail- 
road, made  themselves  masters  of  the  entire  coast, 
and  proceeded  to  the  easy  conquest  or  isolation  of 
Charleston  on  the  one  hand  and  Savannah  on  the 
other. 

This  particular  matter  is  here  mentioned  only  be- 
cause it  serves  to  illustrate  a  larger  truth.  From  the 
time  when  the  Port  Royal  and  the  Hilton  Head  forts 
were  captured  there  was  never  an  hour  when  a  capa- 
ble and  resolute  general  in  command  of  5,000  men 
— and  50,000  might  easily  have  been  sent  to  him — 
could  not  have  made  himself  master  of  the  main  line 
of  Southern  communication,  master  of  Charleston, 


266         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

master  of  Savannah  and  practically  master  of  South 
Carolina  and  its  neighboring  states.  An  enterpris- 
ing officer  engaged  in  accomplishing  this  would,  of 
course,  have  been  reinforced  to  any  desirable  extent, 
and  a  campaign  inland  at  that  point  and  at  that  time 
would  have  promised  results  of  the  utmost  conse- 
quence. 

Here  was  another  of  the  errors  that  served  to  pro- 
long through  four  years  a  war  that  ought  to  have 
been  brought  to  an  end  during  its  first  campaign,  and 
the  needless  and  senseless  prolongation  of  which 
inflicted  almost  incredible  loss  and  suffering  upon  the 
South  and  subjected  the  North  to  financial  burdens 
and  human  sacrifices  of  the  most  stupendous  char- 
acter. 

The  blockade  was  early  made  "effective"  in  that 
degree  which  international  law  requires — so  effective 
that  shipmasters  trying  to  pass  through  it  had  no 
conceivable  right  of  redress  if  their  ships  were  cap- 
tured, or  blown  to  pieces,  or  run  ashore  by  the  block- 
ading squadron.  It  was  never,  even  unto  the  end, 
made  so  effective  as  to  prevent  British  merchantmen 
from  trafficking  at  uncertain  intervals  between 
Nassau  and  the  Southern  ports.  It  did  not  and  could 
not  put  an  end  to  the  importation  of  the  necessaries 
of  war  into  Southern  ports ;  but  it  made  such  importa- 
tion so  enormously  expensive,  even  if  measured  by 
the  cotton  exports  on  which  the  trade  was  based,  as 
greatly  to  cripple  the  Confederacy  in  its  finances. 
The  price  of  goods  imported  at  such  hazard  and  with 
such  difficulty  was  made  great  enough  to  cover  the 
easy  contingency  of  capture  upon  the  outward  as 
well  as  upon  the  inward  voyage. 


The  Blockade  267 

He  wKo  would  understand  the  events  of  that  period 
must  constantly  bear  in  mind  that  during  the  first 
year  or  nearly  that,  of  its  duration  this  war  of  ours 
was  conducted  mainly  by  incapacity  on  both  sides,  by 
martinet  captains  and  incapables  in  civil  office  who 
had  been  suddenly  thrust  into  positions  vastly  too 
great  for  their  abilities. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

The  Era  of  Incapacity 

This  was  the  situation  during  the  year  1861  and 
the  early  part  of  the  year  1862.  There  were  destined 
soon  to  come  upon  the  scene  two  great  masters  of  the 
military  art — the  one  upon  the  one  side  and  the  other 
upon  the  other — Ulysses  S.  Grant  and  Robert  E. 
'Lee.  But  during  the  early  part  of  the  struggle 
neither  of  these  great  men  was  in  a  position  of  mas- 
tery or  control.  Grant  was  struggling  against  all  the 
difficulties  that  technicality  and  official  jealousy  could 
plant  in  his  pathway.  He  found  it  difficult  to  get  into 
the  service  at  all.  He  was  a  West  Point  graduate  and 
he  had  served  with  distinction  in  the  regular  army, 
but  he  had  long  ago  resigned  his  commission.  He 
had  thus  forfeited  all  claim  to  command  those  who 
had  remained  in  the  service  and  who  had  been  pro- 
moted by  seniority.  These,  and  not  Grant,  were 
made  generals. 

When  Grant  offered  his  services  and  asked  for  the 
privilege  of  fighting  the  country's  adversaries  his 
application  was  left  absolutely  unanswered.  His 
only  way  into  the  army  was  "by  the  back  door."  He 
was  elected  by  the  men  to  be  colonel  of  a  regiment  of 
Illinois  volunteers,  but  was  not  commissioned  in  the 
regular  army  until  after  he  had  conducted  a  cam- 
paign to  the  first  considerable  success  achieved  by  the 

268 


The  Era  of  Incapacity  269 

national  arms,  and  not  even  then  without  every  em- 
barrassment and  humiliation  which  it  was  possible  for 
his  inferiors  in  superior  place  to  inflict  upon  him. 
Indeed,  as  will  be  related  later,  his  first  great  victory, 
the  first  of  any  importance  that  had  been  anywhere 
won  for  the  Federal  arms,  was  promptly  punished 
by  his  suspension  from  command  and  by  the  refusal 
of  his  distinctly  inferior  superiors  to  let  him  fol- 
low up  his  success  with  other  and  obviously  easy 
operations. 

On  the  Confederate  side  the  one  masterful  military 
mind  was  that  of  Robert  E.  Lee.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  it  was  Lee  who  selected  Manassas  as  the  first 
point  of  resistance,  and  it  was  under  his  wise  direction 
that  Beauregard  and  Johnston  were  able  to  con- 
centrate their  forces  there  and  to  win  the  victory 
of  July  21,  1861.  But  in  the  meanwhile  Lee  was 
not  himself  appointed  to  command  any  consider- 
able army.  He  was  sent  to  West  Virginia  to  patch 
up  a  peace  between  the  civilian  brigadiers  who  com- 
manded there  and  who  had  managed  among  them- 
selves to  lose  every  action  that  had  occurred  in  that 
quarter.  While  Beauregard  and  Johnston  were 
weakly  throwing  away  the  opportunity  so  conspicu- 
ously opened  to  them  by  the  Manassas  victory,  this 
officer  of  commanding  genius  was  set  to  the  task  of 
organizing  a  mountain  defense  against  expeditions 
that  had  nothing  of  serious  purpose  in  them  except 
the  prevention  of  Confederate  enlistments  west  of 
the  Alleghenies. 

In  the  same  way,  after  the  Carolina  coast  forts 
were  reduced,  Lee  was  sent  to  a  pestilential  hole  called 


270         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

Coosawhatchie,  in  South  Carolina,  to  plan  a  defense 
of  the  railroad  line  between  Charleston  and  Savan- 
nah, while  Johnston  and  Beauregard  were  fortifying 
their  victorious  army  against  a  foe  that  it  had  beaten 
into  temporary  helplessness. 

These  two — Grant  and  Lee — were  destined  in  the 
end  to  fight  the  war  out  to  a  conclusion.  But  in  those 
earlier  months  of  it  neither  was  permitted  to  exercise 
his  genius  in  any  effective  way,  or  to  show  in  action 
what  stuff  he  was  made  of.  Lee  indeed  held  high 
rank  from  the  beginning  and  was  the  military  adviser 
of  the  Confederate  Government,  but  for  a  time  his 
genius  was  dissipated  on  minor  matters,  while  lesser 
men  were  wasting  time. 

And  as  it  was  with  the  great  captains  so  was  it 
with  their  great  lieutenants.  William  T.  Sherman 
was  an  unconsidered,  unconsulted  lieutenant  of  Mc- 
Dowell. Stonewall  Jackson  and  Ewell  and  Long- 
street  were  the  subordinates  of  Beauregard  and 
Johnston.  Grant  and  Sherman  on  the  one  side  and 
Stonewall  Jackson  on  the  other,  had  lost  caste  in  the 
military  service  by  resigning  from  the  regular  army 
at  a  time  when  the  service  neither  offered  nor  prom- 
ised a  career  worthy  of  them.  Inferior  men  there- 
fore, who  had  been  content  with  a  meaningless 
routine,  outranked  and  commanded  these  really  great 
men  after  that  code  of  military  ethics  and  etiquette 
which  assumes  that  the  officer — even  though  he  be  a 
dullard — who  has  been  longest  in  continuous  service 
is  fit  to  command  the  officer — whatever  his  genius 
may  be — who  has  served  for  a  briefer  time  or  who, 
finding  the  service  to  be  a  stupid  and  meaningless 


The  Era  of  Incapacity  271 

routine  of  camp  duty  in  time  of  peace,  has  resigned 
from  it  in  search  of  better  opportunities  for  the  exer- 
cise of  his  abihties,  and  has  returned  to  it  only  when 
duty  to  his  country  has  seemed  to  call  him. 

Thus  the  first  year  of  the  war  was  the  period  in 
which  official  incapacity  ruled  on  both  sides;  the 
period  in  which  technical  rank  overrode  genius  and 
trampled  it  to  earth;  the  period  in  which  the  marti- 
nets were  afflicted  with  victories  which  they  were 
utterly  incapable  of  turning  to  profitable  account, 
and  defeats  which  they  knew  not  how  to  repair. 

A  better  era  was  approaching,  but  it  came  slowly. 
For  a  time  Grant  was  to  be  dominated  by  Halleck. 
For  a  time  Stonewall  Jackson  was  destined  to  have 
his  carefully  considered  disposition  of  forces  in  the 
valley  of  Virginia  overridden  and  canceled  by  an 
ignorant  civilian  in  Richmond,  who  knew  so  little  of 
military  courtesy  as  to  send  his  orders  direct  and  not 
through  Jackson's  commander  Johnston. 

On  the  other  side,  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  a  criminal 
lawyer,  who  knew  nothing  whatever  of  the  military 
art,  was  a  major-general  by  virtue  of  political  influ- 
ence alone,  and  as  such  outranked  and  dominated 
officers  immeasurably  his  superiors.  Think  of  Lee 
banished  to  the  coast  of  South  Carolina,  while  Beau- 
regard and  Johnston  were  needlessly  fortifying  at 
Centreville  against  an  absurdly  impossible  advance 
of  McClellan's  forces.  Think  of  McClellan  himself 
in  command  of  the  most  important  Union  army, 
while  Grant  and  Sherman  and  George  H.  Thomas 
remained  in  subordinate  positions! 

And  in  the  navy  a  similar  discrimination  against 


272         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

demonstrated  capacity  and  in  favor  of  mere  "rank" 
equally  prevailed.  Farragut,  with  all  his  already 
and  abundantly  proved  capacity,  waited  for  the  best 
part  of  a  year  before  he  could  get  permission  to  bring 
his  great  powers  into  play,  and  when  at  last  he  got 
such  permission  from  the  ignorant  and  arrogant  civil- 
ians who  dominated  the  navy  department  at  Wash- 
ington, it  came  to  him  with  an  insulting  suggestion 
of  doubt  as  to  his  courage,  his  patriotism  and  his 
capacity.  That  is  a  sad  story  to  be  told  hereafter. 
Our  present  purpose  is  merely  to  show  how  lamely 
and  incompetently  the  war  was  carried  on  on  both 
sides  during  the  first  year  of  its  progress.  He  who 
considers  the  simple  facts  is  well  nigh  forced  to  the 
conclusion  that  had  either  side  conducted  its  contest 
with  half  the  brains  and  energy  that  came  later  into 
play  it  must  haV/C  won  at  once. 


CHAPTER  XX 

The  First  Appearance  of  Grant 

The  "pepper  box"  policy  of  employing  small 
bodies  of  troops  everywhere  for  the  accomplishment 
of  ends  of  no  strategic  consequence  prevailed  at 
Washington  during  all  those  early  months  of  the  war. 
The  results  of  that  policy  are  the  despair  of  the  his- 
torian who  would  intelligently  trace  the  progress  of 
the  conflict  from  its  beginning  to  its  end.  In  very 
truth  there  was  no  progress.  So  far  as  the  outcome  ofl 
the  war  was  concerned  those  events  had  no  part  to 
play ;  so  far  as  the  history  of  the  war  is  concerned,  any 
attempt  to  relate  their  insignificant  stories  would  serve 
only  to  confuse  the  reader's  mind,  and  to  distract  his 
attention  from  events  and  operations  that  bore  direct- 
ly upon  the  ultimate  outcome  of  a  struggle  which  in- 
volved the  fate  of  the  nation.  Let  us  leave  them 
aside  as  inconsiderable  incidents  and  trace  instead 
those  significant  happenings  that  served  to  determine 
the  ultimate  results. 

The  outcome  of  all  great  wars  is  determined  in  the 
end  by  the  personality  of  the  men  who  conduct  them 
to  a  conclusion.  Circumstances  and  even  accidents 
have  their  part  to  play,  but  in  the  main  it  is  person- 
ality that  determines  the  event. 

So  at  this  point  it  becomes  necessary  to  consider 
General  Grant  as  a  factor  in  the  war,  "a  stone  re- 

1-18  273 


274         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

jected  of  the  builders,"  but  destined  to  become  the 
chief  cornerstone,  nevertheless,  of  Federal  success. 

General  Grant  was  a  West  Point  graduate  rank- 
ing low  in  his  class  at  graduation.  He  served  for  a 
time  in  the  regular  army  with  such  capacity  as  to 
reach  the  rank  of  captain.  Then  he  resigned,  as 
many  other  officers  did — Stonewall  Jackson  and 
William  T.  Sherman  among  the  number — because 
the  police  duty  which  seemed  to  constitute  the  only 
function  of  the  regular  army  offered  no  career  to 
him.  Captain  Grant  became  first  a  farmer  and  later 
a  clerk  in  his  brother's  business  house  at  Galena, 
Illinois,  upon  a  meager  salary  of  $800  a  year,  which 
was  eked  out  by  the  earnings  of  his  slaves  in  Missouri. 
When  the  war  broke  out  he  offered  his  services  to  his 
country,  asking  for  a  restoration  to  the  regular  army. 
His  application  was  not  deemed  worthy  even  of  a 
reply.  But  presently  a  regiment  of  Illinois  volun- 
teers, more  appreciative  than  the  Washington  author- 
ities, made  him  its  colonel,  and  after  a  little  while  he 
was  promoted  to  be  a  brigadier-general  of  volunteers, 
but  still  without  even  so  much  as  a  second  lieutenant's 
commission  in  the  regular  army. 

In  this  volunteer  capacity  he  was  sent  first  to 
Missouri  and  later  to  Cairo  in  Illinois  to  command  a 
wide  district.  He  fought  the  battle  of  Belmont  and 
after  a  partial  victory  he  lost  it.  A  few  months 
earUer,  learning  that  the  Confederates,  who  were  mas- 
ters of  Columbus,  twenty  miles  down  the  Mississippi, 
were  planning  to  seize  upon  Paducah,  fifty  miles  up 
the  Ohio,  Grant  had  undertaken  without  orders  an 
expedition  against  that  town.     He  promptly  cap- 


First  Appearance  of  Grant  275 

tured  it  and  thus  defeated  the  Confederate  pro- 
gram. 

After  the  battle  of  Belmont  he  planned  and  pro- 
posed a  campaign  which  he  hoped  might  reverse  the 
existing  situation  at  the  West  and  give  to  the  Union 
arms  their  first  important  and  strategically  significant 
victory. 

Two  great  and  practically  navigable  rivers,  the 
Cumberland  and  the  Tennessee,  rise  in  the  very  heart 
of  what  was  then  the  Southern  Confederacy.  Upon 
substantially  parallel  though  vastly  varying  lines,  they 
flow  westward  and  northward  till  they  debouch  into 
the  Ohio  River  within  a  few  miles  of  each  other. 

At  a  point  near  the  boundary  between  Kentucky 
and  Tennessee  where  these  two  rivers  flow  within 
eleven  miles  of  each  other,  the  Confederates  had 
erected  two  fortresses  to  command  them — Fort 
Henry  and  Fort  Donelson. 

These  fortresses  gave  to  the  South  control  of  the 
two  rivers.  It  was  Grant's  idea  that  by  the  reduction 
of  these  works  he  might  reverse  this  condition  of 
afl*airs,  and  make  of  the  two  rivers  facile  avenues  of 
Federal  access  to  the  heart  of  the  Confederacy, 
where  now  they  served  the  Confederates  as  roadways 
of  approach  to  positions  of  the  utmost  strategic  im- 
portance to  the  side  that  should  master  and  hold  them. 

But  Grant  was  only  a  brigadier-general  of  volun- 
teers, in  no  way  entitled  to  plan  campaigns  or  to 
make  suggestions  for  campaigns.  Halleck  had  com- 
mand of  the  department,  with  headquarters  at  St. 
Louis.  Halleck  was  a  major  general  in  the  regular 
army  and  Grant's  "superior  officer."     Halleck  dis- 


276         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

liked,  distrusted  and  detested  Grant,  and  so  when 
Grant  asked  permission  to  move  against  and  reduce 
the  Confederate  strongholds  on  the  Tennessee  and 
Cumberland  rivers,  Halleek's  reply  was  in  effect  an 
injunction  to  the  inferior  officer  to  mind  his  own 
business. 

Grant  was  so  sure,  however,  of  his  ability  to  accom- 
plish this  vitally  important  task  that  he  persisted  in 
his  entreaties  and  many  weeks  were  consumed  in 
fruitless  negotiations  for  the  privilege  of  doing  great 
work  in  a  great  way.  At  last  through  the  influence 
of  Commodore  Foote,  commanding  the  naval  forces 
in  that  quarter,  the  discredited  volunteer  general  was 
graciously  permitted  by  his  martinet  superior  to  un- 
dertake and  execute  the  first  operation  of  the  war 
which  crowned  the  Federal  arms  with  a  victory  of 
strategic  importance.  This  permission,  though  long 
solicited,  did  not  come  to  Grant  until  the  very  end  of 
January,  1862,  and  it  was  in  February  that  the  com- 
bined land  and  naval  forces  moved  for  the  capture  of 
the  Confederate  strongholds. 

The  expedition  moved  first  up  the  Tennessee  river. 
Grant  had  about  15,000  men,  a  force  which  was  pres- 
ently swelled  by  reinforcement  to  27,000.  But  his 
advance  was  delayed  and  the  fleet,  with  scarcely  any 
assistance  from  him,  captured  Fort  Henry  on  the 
sixth  of  February.  Then  the  gunboats  steamed  down 
the  river  to  its  mouth  and  thence  up  the  Cumberland 
to  assail  Fort  Donelson.  In  the  meanwhile  Grant 
pushed  across  the  narrow  neck  of  land  between  the 
two  fortresses  and  closely  invested  that  fort.  The 
fleet  made  a  determined  assault  but  was  beaten  off  in 


First  Appearance  of  Grant  277 

a  badly  crippled  condition.  Grant  continued  to 
assail  the  enemy's  works  throughout  three  days  of 
storm  and  sleet  and  suffering,  and  at  the  end  of  that 
time  the  fortress  surrendered  with  about  fourteen 
thousand  men  in  addition  to  a  Confederate  loss  in 
killed  and  wounded  of  about  two  thousand.  The 
greater  part  of  the  garrison  had  previously  escaped. 

This  was  the  first  conspicuous  victory  achieved 
anywhere  by  the  Federal  arms.  Its  moral  effect  was 
incalculable  and  strategically  it  was  of  the  utmost 
imp'^rtance.  It  made  an  end  for  the  time  being  of 
the  war  in  Kentucky  which  had  been  going  on  for 
some  time,  involving  actions  of  some  individual  im- 
portance, though  they  had  no  vital  bearing  upon  the 
strategic  history  of  the  war.  It  made  Federal  in- 
stead of  Confederate  highways  of  the  two  great 
rivers  that  in  their  course  penetrated  almost  to  the 
heart  of  the  Confederacy.  It  made  easy  prey  of 
Nashville  as  a  vantage  point  from  which  the  Federal 
forces  might  penetrate  the  South  and  assail  its  strong- 
holds of  resistance.  Still  further,  as  the  event  showed, 
it  opened  the  way  for  that  campaign  which,  as  many 
critics  think,  resulted  at  Shiloh,  or  Pittsburg  Landing, 
in  the  strategically  decisive  action  of  the  war. 

However  that  may  be,  by  the  accomplishment  of 
his  object  in  this  campaign  General  Grant  had 
achieved  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  and  to  the  coun- 
try one  of  the  most  enheartening  victories  that  were 
accomplished  by  any  general  on  either  side  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end  of  the  war.  He  had  every  right 
to  expect  commendation.  He  had  every  right  to 
expect  permission  to  go  on  from  conquest  to  con- 


278         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

quering,  and  to  have  such  forces  placed  at  his  com- 
mand as  might  be  necessary  for  the  carrying  out  of 
his  enterprises.  But  Grant  was  still  only  an  officer 
of  volunteers  badly  at  outs  with  his  department  com- 
mander, and  those  were  the  days  of  red  tape,  the  days 
in  which  achievement  counted  for  nothing  as  against 
"rank"  and  "seniority." 

It  is  true  that  Halleck,  who  had  never  risen  above 
the  grade  of  captain  in  the  regular  army,  was  at  best 
only  Grant's  equal  in  "old  army  rank."  But  he  had 
the  favor  of  General  Scott  as  Grant  had  not,  and  so, 
ex-captain  that  he  was,  he  had  been  made  a  major- 
general  in  the  regular  service  while  Grant  remained 
a  mere  brigadier- general  of  volunteers.  It  is  true  that 
Grant  had  captured  two  fortresses  of  enormous 
strength  while  Halleck  had  captured  nothing  whatso- 
ever anywhere  on  earth.  It  is  true  that  Grant  had 
received  the  surrender  of  a  powerful  and  important 
fort  with  fourteen  thousand  prisoners  in  addition  to 
a  loss  on  the  part  of  his  enemy  of  two  thousand  in 
killed  and  wounded,  while  Halleck  had  never  received 
the  surrender  of  anybody  and  never  did  to  the  end  of 
the  story.  But  Halleck  was  a  major-general  in  the 
regular  army  in  spite  of  his  resignation  during  his 
captaincy — Grant  also  having  been  a  captain  when  he 
resigned — and  so  Halleck  as  department  commander 
was  authorized  not  only  to  restrain  Grant  from  this 
expedition,  as  he  had  done  during  two  months  of 
precious  opportunity,  but  afterwards  to  suspend  him 
for  many  weeks  from  command,  to  place  him  under 
virtual  arrest  and  for  weary  weeks  to  restrain  him 
from  carrying  out  those  obviously  easy  supplemen- 


First  Appearance  of  Grant  279 

tary  enterprises  with  which  he  desired  to  glory-crown 
his  achievement.  Grant  wanted  to  march  on  Nash- 
ville, which  lay  helpless  before  him  and  offered  to  the 
Federals  a  strategic  position  of  incalculable  value. 
Halleck  ordered  him  to  go  to  his  tent  and  hammock 
instead. 

What  a  wretched  story  it  all  is,  to  be  sure!  What 
a  record  of  imbecility  in  control  of  genius,  of  inca- 
pacity in  command  of  the  highest  ability,  of  small 
men  in  great  places,  and  of  great  men  restrained  from 
action  by  the  superior  authority  of  other  men  im- 
measurably their  inferiors,  who  by  luck,  or  circum- 
stance or  official  favor  came  into  authority  and  posi- 
tion which  they  in  no  wise  deserved,  and  which  they 
were  utterly  incapable  of  using  effectively  in  behalf 
of  the  cause  they  were  set  to  serve!  And  what  a 
price  the  country — North  and  South — was  called 
upon  to  pay  in  blood  and  treasure  and  heartbreak, 
for  all  this  misplacing  of  men! 

But  conditions  and  circumstances  must  be  recog- 
nized, and  due  allowance  must  be  made  for  them. 
The  officers  in  the  regular  United  States  army  were 
strictly  professionals.  Their  first  business  in  life  was 
to  secure  all  they  could  of  rank  and  pay  for  them- 
selves. Whether  they  remained  in  the  regular  army 
or  resigned  to  accept  Confederate  service,  their  first 
concern  was  to  secure  all  they  could  of  personal  pre- 
ferment, rank,  distinction,  and  recognition.  Why 
should  Beauregard  or  Johnston  surrender  aught  of 
their  advantages  of  regularity  in  behalf  of  the  genius 
of  Stonewall  Jackson,  who  had  long  ago  resigned  to 
become  a  professor  in  a  military  institute?     Why 


280         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

should  McDowell,  who  had  remained  in  the  regular 
army,  give  place  to  Sherman,  who  had  resigned  to 
become  a  professor  in  a  school?  Why  should  Halleck, 
who  by  General  Scott's  favor  had  been  raised  from 
the  rank  of  resigned  captain  to  that  of  major-general, 
give  place  or  favor  to  the  ex-Captain  Grant,  now  by 
mere  popular  selection  a  brigadier-general  of  volun- 
teers, holding  no  place  whatsoever  in  the  regular 
army?  Why  should  General  Halleck  permit  this 
interloper  Grant  to  go  on  winning  victories?  And 
why  when  the  volunteer  general  had  won  them — as 
for  example  at  Pittsburg  Landing — should  not 
Halleck  come  as  he  did  and  take  command  and  thus 
assume  to  himself  the  credit  due  to  another? 

These  were  the  ways  of  the  early  war.  Moreover 
the  administration  on  either  side  had  no  means  of 
measuring  men's  capacities  except  by  army  rank  or 
the  favor  of  commanders.  It  was  not  until  later  that 
better  counsels  prevailed,  that  demonstrated  capacity 
was  recognized,  and  that  the  military  martinet 
learned  that  something  more  than  seniority  was  re- 
quired as  a  claim  to  command. 

Stonewall  Jackson,  it  is  true,  had  been  made  a 
major-general  in  the  Confederate  service  in  reward 
for  his  conduct  at  Manassas,  but  there  were  lieuten- 
ant-generals and  full  generals  still  outranking  him 
and  his  was  an  exceptional  case.  Grant  did  not  share 
in  the  benefits  of  the  example.  He  had  won  a  great 
victory  which  gave  fresh  heart  and  courage  to  the 
country,  but  in  his  reports  he  had  been  careless  of 
technical  details  and  had  given  no  special  credit  for 
his  achievements  to  the  department  commander  who 


First  Appearance  of  Grant  281 

had  done  all  he  could  to  prevent  him  from  achieving 
anything  at  all.  He  had  made  himself  ''persona  non 
grata''  at  department  headquarters,  though  the  peo- 
ple everywhere  were  acclaiming  him  as  a  victor  to  the 
sore  annoyance  of  "headquarters."  Why  should 
"headquarters"  let  the  interloper  complete  his  work  by 
seizing  upon  the  vitally  important  positions  which 
his  victory  had  made  easy  of  conquest?  Who  was 
Grant,  anyhow?  Ex-captain,  ex-Galena  clerk,  and 
only  a  brigadier-general  of  volunteers!  What  right 
had  he  to  the  credit  of  any  victories  he  had  been  gra- 
ciously permitted  to  win? 


CHAPTER  XXI 

The  Situation  Before  Shiloh 

During  the  autumn  of  1861  the  troops  of  both 
sides  were  pushed  into  the  "neutral"  state  of  Ken- 
tucky at  various  points  and  in  considerable  numbers. 
Two  battles  of  some  moment  resulted.  At  a  place 
called  Paintville,  on  the  Big  Sandy  river  in  the  east- 
ern part  of  the  state,  Humphrey  Marshall  estab- 
lished himself  with  about  2,000  or  2,500  Confeder- 
ates. Colonel  Garfield  (afterwards  General  and  still 
later  President) ,  in  command  of  a  substantially  equal 
force  of  Federals,  assailed  Marshall  there,  pushed 
his  columns  back  and  on  January  10,  1862,  so  far 
crippled  him  in  a  small  but  hotly  contested  pitched 
battle  that  Marshall  was  glad  to  retreat  during  the 
night  with  a  loss  of  morale  which  at  that  period  of  the 
war  was  as  important  as  the  loss  of  guns. 

In  the  meanwhile  the  Confederate  General  Zol- 
licoifer,  one  of  those  amateurs  in  the  military  art 
who  managed  by  political  or  other  interest  to  push 
themselves  into  military  command  on  either  side,  in- 
vaded eastern  Kentucky,  was  defeated  on  October 
21st,  and  fell  back  to  Mill  Springs  on  the  upper  wa- 
ters of  the  Cumberland,  where  he  fortified  himself. 

General  Don  Carlos  Buell  on  the  Federal  side  was 
in  command  of  the  department,  and  General  George 
H.  Thomas  was  in  command  of  the  column  that  im- 
mediately confronted  Zollicoif er. 


The  Situation  Before  Shiloh  283 

General  Thomas  was  a  Virginian  by  birth  and  was 
passionately  devoted  to  his  native  state  and  its  his- 
toric memories.    He  had  been  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
war  a  major  in  that  specially  selected  regiment  of 
which  Robert  E.  Lee  was  colonel  and  in  which  the 
roster   of   his   fellow  officers   included  besides   Lee 
Albert  Sydney  Johnston,  WiUiam  J.  Hardee,  Earl 
Van  Dorn,  E.   Kirby  Smith,  John  B.  Hood  and 
Fitzhugh  Lee.    All  of  these,  Thomas's  fellow  South- 
erners, resigned  their  commissions  and  accepted  serv- 
ice in  the  Confederate  army.    Thomas,  who  had  very 
remarkably  distinguished  himself  in  the  service,  might 
well  have  been  strongly  tempted,  not  only  by  the 
example  of  these  his  beloved  comrades  and  by  his 
sentimental  affection  for  his  native  state,  but  addi- 
tionally by  the  direct  certainty  of  an  exalted  com- 
mand in  the  Confederate  army,  to  go  with  them  into 
the  Southern  service.     To  him  peculiarly  came  the 
perplexing  problem  of  divided  allegiance  which  pre- 
sented itself  to  every  old  army  officer  of  Southern 
birth,  and  it  is  said — whether  truthfully  or  not  the  his- 
torian cannot  determine — that  for  a  time  he  seriously 
and  painfully  hesitated  whether  to  cast  in  his  lot  with 
Virginia   and   the    South,   and   thus   join  his   most 
cherished  comrades,  or  to  retain  his  place  in  the  service 
of  the  nation  that  had  educated  him  as  a  soldier  and 
that  had  so  generously  recognized  and  so  richly  re- 
warded his  genius  and  his  devotion  in  the  past.    In 
the  end  he  decided  to  adhere  to  the  Federal  cause,  and 
very  early  in  the  war  he  was  offered  that  supreme 
command  of  the  Federal  armies  which  Robert  E.  Lee 
had  refused.     He  too  declined  that  honor  and  re- 


284         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

sponsibility,  remaining,  however,  in  the  Federal  serv- 
ice and  becoming  one  of  the  most  briUiant  coromand- 
ers  in  the  Northern  armies. 

At  Mill  Springs  with  seven  regiments,  two  batteries, 
and  a  handful  of  cavalry,  he  assailed  Zollicoffer — 
who  was  killed  in  action — overthrew  him  and  his  suc- 
cessor Crittenden,  and  in  effect  drove  the  Confeder- 
ates across  the  river.  This  was  the  first  considerable 
victory  won  by  the  Federal  arms  in  any  part  of  the 
country  after  the  Manassas  defeat  and  its  moral 
effect  was  naturally  very  great.  It  antedated  Grant's 
victories,  but  was  of  course  insignificant  in  compari- 
son with  them. 

In  the  meantime  General  Buell  was  busily  organ- 
izing the  Army  of  the  Ohio,  with  headquarters  at 
Louisville  and  very  skilfully  endeavoring  to  maneu- 
ver the  Confederates  out  of  Kentucky  without  a 
pitched  battle,  the  results  of  which  might  have  been 
for  better  or  for  worse  in  the  then  undisciplined  con- 
dition of  his  troops.  It  was  a  period  of  the  war  in 
which  orderly  battles  were  imminently  perilous  to  the 
Federal  cause,  because  success  in  them  would  have 
accomplished  little  while  failure  in  them — which 
might  easily  result  from  the  rawness  of  the  troops — 
would  have  made  of  every  border  state  a  Confeder- 
ate possession  and  stronghold. 

General  Buell  was  afterwards  bitterly  censured 
for  not  having  fought  great  battles.  It  seems  a 
sounder  judgment  which  awards  him  praise  for  hav- 
ing maneuvered  the  Confederates  out  of  Kentucky 
and  far  into  Tennessee,  without  risking  all  results 
upon  the  hazard  of  any  single  contest  which,  with  his 
raw  troops,  he  might  or  might  not  have  won. 


The  Situation  Before  Shiloh  285 

But  when  Grant  and  Foote  succeeded  in  capturing 
Fort  Henry  and  Fort  Donelson,  the  situation  was 
fundamentally  changed.  There  was  a  large  and 
rapidly  increasing  force  at  Louisville  and  near  Bowl- 
ing Green  under  General  Buell.  Grant  had  his  vic- 
torious forces  at  the  two  strongholds  of  Fort  Henry 
and  Fort  Donelson.  It  was  obviously  easy  and 
obviously  wise  to  move  with  the  two  armies  upon 
Nashville  and  add  the  conquest  of  all  the  Tennessee 
strongholds  to  that  already  achieved  of  all  positions 
that  could  by  any  possibility  give  to  the  Confederates 
a  standing  ground  in  Kentucky. 

In  brief  Grant's  idea  was  to  employ  all  available 
forces  in  the  quick  reduction  of  important  Confeder- 
ate positions,  the  overthrow  of  all  Confederate  armed 
forces,  and  the  breaking  of  Confederate  resisting 
power  before  it  could  have  time  to  strengthen  itself 
with  reinforcements  or  with  fortifications,  or  still 
more  important  with  the  organization,  disciplining 
and  seasoning  of  its  troops.  Accordingly  he  notified 
General  Halleck  that  he  purposed  to  move  at  once 
upon  Nashville  and  positions  beyond,  unless  forbid- 
den to  do  so. 

He  was  promptly  forbidden  to  do  anything  of  the 
kind,  and  peremptorily  called  back  from  a  career  of 
easy  and  obvious  victory.  For  who  was  this  $800 
Galena  clerk?  What  right  had  he  to  plan  campaigns 
and  carry  them  to  a  success  that  reflected  no  credit 
upon  his  regular  army  military  superiors?  It  is 
true  that  he  had  captured  Forts  Henry  and  Donel- 
son, with  14,623  men,  65  cannon,  and  17,000  stands 
of  small  arms,  with  ammunition  and  accouterments 


286         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

in  proportion.  It  is  true  that  he  had  made  Federal 
possessions  of  two  important  rivers  reaching  into  the 
heart  of  the  Confederacy  and  commanding  its  most 
important  line  of  defense.  It  is  true  that  he  had 
won  the  first  great  inspiriting  success  of  the  war  for 
the  Federal  arms.  It  is  true  that  he  had  broken 
that  carefully  constructed  line  of  defense  which  the 
Confederates  had  established  from  the  Atlantic  to 
the  Mississippi.  It  is  true  that  he  had  placed  the 
National  forces  in  such  a  position  within  the  heart  of 
the  Confederacy  that  a  further  and  decisive  advance 
into  Alabama,  Georgia  and  Mississippi  was  obvious 
and  easy.  But  on  the  other  hand  he  was  only  a  volun- 
teer, possessing  no  rank  or  place  in  that  regular  army 
group  which,  at  the  North  and  at  the  South  alike, 
stoutly  asserted  its  claim  to  command  by  virtue  of 
regularity  and  seniority  of  commission  and  wholly 
without  regard  to  demonstrated  genius  or  proved 
capacity. 

Grant's  achievements  in  the  capture  of  Forts 
Henry  and  Donelson  were  so  far  recognized  at 
Washington  that  he  was  presently  raised  from  the 
rank  of  brigadier  to  that  of  major-general  of  volun- 
teers. But  he  was  still  denied  even  a  junior  second 
lieutenant's  place  in  the  regular  army,  and  in  the 
meantime  an  officer  in  the  regular  army  was  au- 
thorized and  entitled  not  only  to  order  him  to  do 
things — a  small  matter  to  a  man  disposed  and  accus- 
tomed to  do  things — ^but  to  forbid  him  to  do  things — 
a  matter  of  much  greater  consequence  to  such  a  man. 

General  Halleck's  official  position  was  immeasur- 
ably superior  to  that   of   Grant — at  best   a  mere 


The  Situation  Before  Shiloh  287 

major-general  of  volunteers — while  his  military 
capacity  was  in  an  equal  degree  inferior  to  Grant's. 
Grant  habitually  won  battles.  Halleck  never  did. 
Grant  conducted  campaigns  to  success.  Did  Hal- 
leck? It  has  already  been  shown  for  how  long 
Halleck  restrained  Grant  from  undertaking  his 
expedition  against  Fort  Henry  and  Fort  Donelson. 
When  that  campaign  resulted  in  such  a  success  as 
had  not  before  been  anywhere  achieved  by  the  Federal 
arms,  Grant  very  naturally  wanted  to  follow  it  up 
in  ways  calculated  speedily  to  break  the  Confederate 
resistance,  to  occupy  the  commanding  positions  in  the 
Confederacy  and  to  push  Federal  columns  southward 
through  the  seceding  states,  cutting  them  in  twain 
and  making  an  end  of  their  unity.  It  seemed  to  him 
when  Forts  Henry  and  Donelson  were  in  his  posses- 
sion quite  a  matter  of  course  that  he  should  move 
with  his  27,000  men  upon  Nashville  and  other  stra- 
tegic points  further  south,  and  that  all  available 
forces,  including  Buell's  strong  and  steadily  increas- 
ing army,  should  be  ordered  to  join  him  and  assist 
him  in  the  execution  of  this  enterprise  before  the 
Confederates  could  organize  effective  resistance.  In 
brief  it  seemed  to  Grant,  simple  soldier  that  he  was, 
that  the  purpose  of  the  organization  of  the  Federal 
forces  was  to  win  the  war  as  quickly  as  possible  and 
with  the  smallest  possible  sacrifice  of  life  and  treas- 
ure. The  shortest  road  to  that  end  was  to  follow  up 
his  victory  by  the  capture  of  other  Confederate  posi- 
tions, the  conquest  of  which  was  then  easy  and  the 
possession  of  which  seemed  to  promise  that  result. 
But  Grant  had  already  offended  his  superior  offi- 


288         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

cer,  not  only  by  proposing  operations  which  should 
have  been  suggested — as  they  were  not — from  "regu- 
lar" headquarters,  but  still  more  by  carrying  such 
amateurish  operations  to  a  successful  conclusion  and 
by  winning,  without  any  sort  of  credit  to  headquar- 
ters, the  first  conspicuous  and  country-inspiriting  vic- 
tory that  the  Federal  arms  could  claim.  The  land 
was  resounding  with  Grant's  praises  even  while 
Halleck  was  putting  him  under  virtual  arrest,  and 
not  a  word  was  said  in  extolment  of  the  genius  of 
Halleck  who  had  so  reluctantly  consented  to  this 
volunteer  officer's  enterprise.  Manifestly  this  ex- 
Galena  clerk  who  had  a  genius  for  doing  things  must 
be  restrained.  Otherwise  he  would  presently  run 
away  with  all  the  glory  that  belonged  by  prescriptive 
right  to  his  superiors  in  the  regular  army,  and  par- 
ticularly to  General  Halleck,  in  his  cushioned  quar- 
ters at  St.  Louis. 

Accordingly  General  Grant  was  censured  for  his 
unauthorized  advance  upon  Nashville,  and  instead  of 
proceeding  against  Confederate  strongholds  further 
South  which  were  easily  within  his  vigorous  and  reso- 
lute grasp,  was  peremptorily  ordered  to  return  to  the 
forts  which  he  had  captured  with  such  splendor  of 
success  and  there  to  sit  still  till  released  from  what 
amounted  to  arrest. 

It  was  the  story  of  Manassas  over  again,  except 
that  it  was  reversed  in  its  application.  As  after 
Manassas  Washington  lay  an  easy  prey  to  the  Con- 
federates, which  by  reason  of  incapacity  they  did  not 
grasp,  so,  and  in  like  measure,  the  central  strongholds 
of  the  Confederacy  lay,  after  the  capture  of  Forts 


The  Situation  Before  Shiloh  289 

Henry  and  Donelson,  within  the  easy  grasp  of 
Grant's  army.  The  only  difference  was  that  in  the 
one  case  it  was  the  inexperience  of  the  general  in  the 
field  that  forbade,  while  in  the  other  it  was  the  para- 
lyzing prohibition  of  the  general  in  a  secure  head- 
quarters that  stood  in  the  way  of  achievement. 

In  the  one  case  it  was  the  predestined  men  of  action 
who  faltered  and  failed  of  their  opportunity.  In  the 
other  the  man  of  action  was  restrained  by  "orders" 
which  he  dared  not  disobey. 

Thus  by  the  paralysis  of  Halleck's  official  hand. 
Grant  was  restrained  from  pushing  the  war  to  results 
— possibly  even  to  a  conclusion — prompt,  certain  and 
immediate. 

General  Halleck,  who  never  in  all  his  life  com- 
manded an  army  in  battle,  was  by  the  pure  unreason 
of  military  law  and  etiquette  officially  authorized  to 
restrain  the  military  impulse  of  Grant  toward  mani- 
festly right  ends. 

Grant  had  neglected,  or  was  accused  of  having 
neglected,  some  technical  formality  as  to  details  in 
making  his  report  of  the  actions  which  Had  made  him 
master  of  the  forts.  To  ordinary  common-sense  it 
would  seem  that  the  only  important  facts  which  he 
was  called  upon  to  report  on  that  occasion  were  that 
he  had  certain  forces  under  his  command;  that  after 
three  days  of  hard  fighting  in  rain  and  sleet  and 
indescribable  mud  his  enemy  had  surrendered  the 
forts  with  14,623  men,  65  pieces  of  artillery  and 
17,000  stands  of  small  arms ;  that  he  had  made  him- 
self master  of  the  two  strongholds  and  now  com- 
pletely commanded  both  rivers,  having  thus  opened 

1-19 


290         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

a  double  river  route  into  the  heart  of  the  Southern 
Confederacy,  which  he  proposed  to  make  still  further 
available  by  an  immediate  advance  upon  Nashville 
and  other  strategic  points  the  possession  of  which 
would  give  him  an  open  pathway  to  the  Gulf  itself. 

This  was  all  that  common-sense  required  Grant  to 
report  for  the  information  of  his  superiors,  and  he 
reported  precisely  that.  But  those  office-housed 
superiors  held  him  guilty  of  neglect  in  that  he  had  not 
given  in  detail  the  position  of  every  regiment  and 
brigade  and  battery  that  had  helped  to  win  the  vic- 
tory. In  punishment  of  this  neglect  of  infinitely 
petty  detail — and  also  in  emphasis  of  the  fact  that 
Grant  was  after  all  only  a  general  of  volunteers  who 
had  presumed  to  win  unauthorized  victories  in  no  way 
assigned  to  him  to  win — Grant  was  called  back  from 
his  advance  for  the  conquest  of  those  strategic  points 
that  lay  so  easily  within  his  grasp  and  ordered  instead 
to  remain  where  he  was  and  to  let  slip  from  his  hands 
the  ripe  fruits  of  his  victory. 

Was  there  ever  anything  so  absurd  as  this,  outside 
of  comic  opera — ^this  and  the  extraordinary  reign  of 
incapacity  in  the  Confederate  army  and  Govern- 
ment?    That  was  of  like  kind  and  quality. 

The  simple  fact,  of  which  the  historian  is  obliged 
to  take  account,  is  that  if  ordinary  common-sense  and 
the  commonest  forms  of  military  sagacity  had  been 
in  control  on  either  side  at  the  beginning  of  the  war — 
if  the  men  able  to  do  things  had  been  permitted  to  do 
them — the  struggle  must  almost  certainly  have  ended 
within  a  few  months  after  its  beginning;  tens,  yes, 
scores  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of  lives  must  have 


The  Situation  Before  Shiloh  291 

been  spared  and  multitudes  of  millions  in  expendi- 
ture and  in  the  destruction  of  property  would  have 
been  saved  to  the  American  people. 

That  however  was  not  to  be.  It  was  written  in 
the  Book  of  Fate  that  for  a  time  incapacity,  self- 
seeking,  narrow-minded,  jealousy  of  rank,  and  other 
like  forces  of  the  coarse  and  the  commonplace  were 
to  rule  about  equally  on  the  one  side  and  on  the  other, 
and  that  thus  the  war  was  to  be  prolonged  at  terrible 
cost  of  sorrow  and  suffering  and  slaughter. 

This  was  the  situation  in  the  West  at  the  time  when 
McClellan  was  drilling  his  men  around  Washington, 
while  Beauregard  and  Johnston  were  futilely  forti- 
fying at  Centreville  to  meet  an  assault  that  only  the 
writer  of  nonsense  rhymes  could  at  that  time  have 
regarded  as  possible,  and  the  victorious  Federal 
forces  on  the  Carolina  coasts  were  succumbing  to  the 
lassitude  which  that  climate  invites,  making  no  vigor- 
ous efforts  to  conquer  the  exposed  and  indefensible 
Confederate  lines  of  communication  in  that  quarter. 

Grant  had  a  force  of  commanding  numbers  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Forts  Henry  and  Donelson.  His 
army  had  been  swelled  to  27,000  men.  Buell  had  as 
many  more  men — some  of  them  battle-seasoned — at 
Louisville  and  south  of  that  city.  There  were  other 
forces  in  eastern  Kentucky  under  capable  command- 
ers, which  could  easily  have  been  brought  to  bear, 
forming  an  army  of  more  than  100,000  men  in  sup- 
port of  any  southward  movement  that  might  be 
undertaken.  The  movement  which  naturally  sug- 
gested itself  to  an  aggressive  military  mind  was  one 
against  Nashville,  with  an  eye  to  the  penetration  of 


292         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

the  South  from  that  point  as  a  base  of  supplies.  The 
"march  to  the  sea"  was  as  easy  a  possibility  then  as 
when  Sherman  made  it  years  later. 

This  was  Grant's  idea,  and  it  had  behind  it  the 
eminent  common-sense  which  usually  inspired  and 
informed  that  very  practical  general's  plans.  His 
purpose  was  to  march  with  an  overwhelming  force, 
from  Nashville  to  the  Gulf.  He  could  have  done 
this  easily  and  certainly,  had  he  been  permitted  to 
undertake  it  with  the  forces  then  available.  But,  as 
we  have  seen,  his  purpose  was  brought  to  naught  by 
the  veto  of  General  Halleck,  whose  notion  of  strategy 
seems  to  have  been  to  let  his  enemy  determine  where 
and  when  the  fighting  should  occur. 

Nevertheless  the  Southerners,  seeing  the  strategic 
situation  far  more  clearly  than  Halleck  did,  aban- 
doned Nashville  and  Federal  troops  of  Buell's  army 
promptly  occupied  that  city.  Thus  Grant's  success 
was  saved  to  the  country  in  some  small  and  insignifi- 
cant measure,  though  Grant  was  himself  suspended 
from  command  and  compelled  to  wait  in  inglorious 
ease  until  the  Confederates  by  ceaseless  and  heroic 
efforts  got  together  a  great  army  in  northern  Missis- 
sippi, to  meet  which  General  Halleck  found  it  neces- 
sary to  call  upon  his  most  capable  lieutenant,  Ulysses 
S.  Grant. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

Between  Manassas  and  Shiloh — The  Situation 
IN  Virginia 

It  is  necessary  now  to  record  what  had  mean- 
while been  going  on  in  Virginia  and  elsewhere.  At 
the  beginning  of  November  General  George  B. 
McClellan  was  placed  in  supreme  command  subject 
only  to  the  President — of  all  the  armies  of  the  United 
States.  He  was  called  "the  young  Napoleon," 
though  upon  what  grounds  of  achievement  that  char- 
acterization was  based  it  is  difficult  to  conjecture. 
He  was  thirty-five  years  of  age,  and  therefore  young. 
He  was  a  West  Point  graduate  and  an  accomplished 
officer  of  engineers.  He  had  been  sent  during  the 
Crimean  war  to  observe  and  report  upon  the  organ- 
ization and  conduct  of  European  armies.  He  had 
made  a  report  admirable  in  its  literary  quality  and 
expert  in  its  observations.  Later  he  had  won  dis- 
tinction by  his  very  capable  conduct  of  that  campaign 
in  western  Virginia  which  resulted  in  the  division  of 
the  "pivotal"  border  state,  and  the  arraying  of  its 
western  half  upon  the  Federal  side.  But  neither  in 
his  deeds  nor  in  the  temper  of  his  mind  was  there 
aught  that  could  with  propriety  be  called  Napoleonic. 
He  was  given  from  first  to  last,  as  will  appear  here- 
after, to  the  temperamental  fault  of  exaggerating  his 
enemy's  strength  and  to  a  shrinking  from  conflict 
with  a  foe  whose  forces  he  thus  overestimated. 

S93 


294         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

Nevertheless,  when  McClellan  was  appointed  to 
the  supreme  command  of  the  Union  armies  after  his 
months  of  organizing  at  Washington  it  was  expected 
of  him  that  he  should  at  once  advance  upon  Rich- 
mond and  dictate  terms  of  surrender  in  the  Confed- 
erate capital  itself. 

He  had  found  around  Washington  in  the  summer 
a  state  of  affairs  which  must  have  hopelessly  discour- 
aged any  commanding  officer  not  altogether  given 
over  to  optimism.  It  sadly  discouraged  McClellan. 
In  words  of  his  own  he  found  at  Washington  "no 
army  to  command — a  mere  collection  of  regiments 
cowering  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac,  some  per- 
fectly raw,  others  dispirited  by  recent  defeat,  some 
going  home.  There  were,"  he  added,  "no  defensive 
works  on  the  southern  approaches  to  the  capital. 
Washington,"  he  officially  reported,  "was  crowded 
with  straggling  officers  and  men  absent  from  their 
stations  without  authority."  Is  there  any  wonder  that 
McClellan  found  it  necessary  to  devote  many  months 
to  the  task  of  creating  an  effective  army  out  of  such 
stuff  as  this?  Is  there  any  escape  from  wonder  that 
with  the  national  capital  thus  hopelessly  undefended, 
Beauregard  and  Johnston  failed  to  advance  upon  and 
capture  it? 

This  matter  has  been  discussed  in  sufficient  detail 
already  in  these  pages.  But  it  is  worthy  of  note  that 
the  Confederate  commanders  who  so  strangely  ne- 
glected their  opportunities  after  the  battle  of  Ma- 
nassas, were  not  restrained  by  higher  authority  from 
the  activity  that  was  so  obviously  called  for  by  the 
circumstances  of  the  case,  as  Grant  was  after  Donel- 


Between  Manassas  and  Shiloh  295 

son.  They  were  free  to  act  upon  their  own  initiative, 
and  had  they  been  at  that  time,  as  they  afterwards 
became,  generals  of  fair  military  capacity  they  would 
have  acted  with  vigor  and  promptitude  and  the  future 
history  of  the  war  would  very  certainly  have  been 
quite  other  than  it  was. 

The  chief  hope  of  the  Confederates  lay  in  the 
recognition  of  their  independence  by  foreign  gov- 
ernments and  in  a  presumably  probable  alliance  be- 
tween themselves  and  the  powerful  nations  of 
Europe.  To  promote  that  result  they  sent  out  two 
duly  accredited  ministers,  the  one  to  Great  Britain 
and  the  other  to  France.  The  men  selected  for  this 
service  were  James  M.  Mason  of  Virginia  and  John 
Slidell  of  Louisiana. 

These  envoys  escaped  through  the  blockade  to 
Havana.  There  they  embarked  on  the  British  mail 
steamer  Trent,  Captain  Charles  Wilkes,  command- 
ing the  United  States  steam  frigate  San  Jacinto^ 
overhauled  the  Trent  at  sea,  on  November  eight,  and 
made  prisoners  of  Mason  and  Shdell  and  their 
secretaries. 

There  is  no  doubt  now  that  the  act  of  Captain 
Wilkes  was  utterly  lawless.  But  there  is  equally  no 
doubt  that  it  was  dictated  by  a  patriotic  purpose.  It 
was  instantly  and  enthusiastically  applauded  through- 
out the  North,  and  the  Federal  Congress,  inattentive 
to  international  law  or  consequences,  voted  thanks  to 
Wilkes  for  his  conduct  in  the  matter.  However,  there 
was  the  offended  British  government  still  to  be  reck- 
oned with,  and  that  government  was  at  that  time  not 
very  reluctant  to  pick  a  quarrel  with  the  United 


296         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

States  or  to  find  a  substantial  excuse  for  recognizing 
Southern  independence,  and  perhaps  lending  aid  to 
the  Southern  arms. 

The  act  of  Captain  Wilkes  was  denounced  by  the 
British  Government,  as  an  outrage  upon  British  neu- 
trality and  a  wanton  trespass  upon  British  sov- 
ereignty as  represented  by  the  Union  Jack  afloat  over 
a  British  mail  steamer.  A  demand  was  promptly 
made  for  the  surrender  of  Mason  and  Slidell,  and 
for  an  apology.  There  is  no  possible  room  for  doubt 
that  that  demand  was  justified  under  the  laws  of 
nations  and  peculiarly  so  by  the  precedents  of  Amer- 
ican contention,  for  it  was  in  protest  against  precisely 
such  sea  seizures  that  this  country  had  made  war  in 
1812.  But  the  people  of  the  North  were  tremendous- 
ly excited  over  an  incident  in  which  they  greatly  re- 
joiced, and  it  was  in  an  extreme  degree  dangerous 
for  the  administration  to  contravene  popular  senti- 
ment and  to  undo  Captain  Wilkes's  work,  by  yielding 
to  Britain's  demands  for  the  surrender  of  Mason  and 
SUdell. 

From  beginning  to  end  of  the  war  there  was  per- 
haps no  problem  so  perplexing  as  that  which  this 
controversy  presented  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  administra- 
tion to  solve.  To  refuse  Britain's  demands  was  to 
invite  instant  war  with  the  greatest  naval  power  in 
the  world,  with  the  certainty  that  France,  already 
eager,  would  join  forces  with  Great  Britain  in  recog- 
nizing the  Southern  Confederacy  and  supporting  it 
in  its  assertion  of  independence.  In  that  case  all  that 
the  United  States  had  done  toward  the  establishment 
of  a  blockade  of  Southern  ports  would  have  been 


Between  Manassas  and  Shiloh  297 

quickly  undone  by  the  appearance  of  overmastering 
British  and  French  fleets  on  the  Southern  coasts,  and 
very  probably  by  the  landing  of  British  and  French 
forces  to  aid  the  Confederates  in  their  war  against 
the  Union.  For  when  war  is  on  nations  do  not  stop 
at  technical  interference.  They  are  apt  to  furnish 
men  and  guns  in  aid  of  the  cause  they  have  espoused. 
In  any  case  a  declaration  of  war  between  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States — a  declaration  of  war 
which  the  capture  of  Mason  and  Slidell  very  narrowly 
threatened — would  have  resulted  in  the  raising  of  the 
blockade  of  every  Southern  port  and  the  opening  of 
the  South  to  that  free  traffic  in  arms,  ammunition  and 
supplies  which  chiefly  the  South  needed  in  order  to 
accomplish  its  purposes. 

Should  the  Government,  on  the  other  hand,  yield 
to  the  British  demand,  it  must  encounter  that  highly 
inflamed  popular  sentiment  which  had  compelled  a 
congressional  resolution  of  thanks  to  Captain  Wilkes, 
and  which — sanely  or  insanely — ^was  disposed  to 
twiddle  its  fingers  at  British  or  any  other  interven- 
tion in  American  affairs. 

Mr.  Seward,  as  Secretary  of  State,  solved  the 
matter  by  one  of  the  most  adroit  diplomatic  quibbles 
ever  invented  by  an  ingenious  mind.  He  must  sur- 
render Mason  and  Slidell  of  course,  otherwise  war 
was  on  with  England  and  France,  the  blockade  was 
broken,  the  Confederacy  was  recognized  and  the 
establishment  of  a  Southern  Republic  was  an  accom- 
plished fact.  On  the  other  hand  Mr.  Seward  must 
not  without  good  and  sufficient  excuse  yield  one  jot 
or  tittle  to  English  demands — even  though  those  de- 


298         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

mands  were  supported  by  American  precedents — ^lest 
he  offend  the  "whip  all  creation"  sentiment  of  the 
country. 

Probably  in  all  history  no  diplomat  ever  managed 
so  delicate  or  so  difficult  a  matter  so  skilfully  as  Mr. 
Seward  did  this.  He  carefully  set  forth  the  war 
rights  of  his  country.  He  contended  that  Captain 
Wilkes  had  a  right  to  capture  the  Trent  as  a  vessel 
knowingly  carrying  contraband  of  war.  But  he  ex- 
plained that,  as  Captain  Wilkes  had  released  the  vessel 
instead  of  bringing  her  into  port  as  a  prize,  he  had 
lost  his  rights  and  forfeited  his  claims.  In  summing 
up  Mr.  Seward  said:  "If  I  declare  this  case  in  favor 
of  my  own  Government  I  must  disavow  its  most 
cherished  principles  and  reverse  and  forever  abandon 
its  most  essential  policy.  We  are  asked  to  do  to  the 
British  nation  just  what  we  have  insisted  all  nations 
ought  to  do  to  us." 

Mr.  Seward's  plea  was  a  specious  one,  but  it  an- 
swered its  purpose.  It  enabled  him  to  avoid  war  with 
Great  Britain  and  France  without  alienating  from 
the  administration  the  support  of  that  sentiment  of 
confident  self-reliance  in  the  country  upon  which 
enlistments  and  the  success  of  the  war  depended. 
He  surrendered  Mason  and  Slidell,  but  he  adroitly 
managed  to  represent  his  action  rather  as  a  new  asser- 
tion of  the  old  1812  doctrine  of  American  rights  than 
as  in  any  sense  a  surrender  to  a  foreign  nation's  de- 
mand. Thus  peace  abroad  was  secured  and  popular 
sentiment  at  home  was  appeased;  and  after  all  the 
temporary  detention  of  the  two  Confederate  minis- 
ters had  fully  accomplished  its  purpose.    By  the  time 


Between  Manassas  and  Shiloh  299 

that  they  reached  Europe  official  and  public  opinion 
in  that  quarter  had  so  far  changed  that  neither 
France  nor  England  was  any  longer  disposed  to 
recognize  the  independent  nationality  of  the  Confed- 
eracy which  had  so  conspicuously  neglected  its  easy 
opportunity  to  compel  recognition  by  an  advance 
upon  Washington  after  Manassas. 

One  other  event  of  importance  remains  to  be 
recorded  in  this  chapter.  When  the  Confederates 
seized  upon  the  Navy  Yard  at  Portsmouth,  opposite 
Norfolk,  Virginia,  the  Federal  forces  there  destroyed 
all  they  could  of  valuable  materials  and  adjuncts  of 
war.  But  there  was  left  a  ship,  the  Merrimac,  burned 
in  part  and  sunk.  The  Confederates  raised  this  ship, 
cut  her  down  and  armored  her  with  railroad  iron. 
She  was  the  first  iron-clad  ship  that  ever  assailed  other 
ships,  the  pioneer  of  all  modern  naval  armaments.  At 
the  same  time  Captain  John  Ericsson  at  the  North 
was  experimenting  upon  somewhat  similar  lines  and 
producing  the  Monitor,  the  first  iron-clad,  turreted 
ship  ever  built. 

On  the  eighth  of  March  the  Confederate  iron-clad 
ram  the  Merrimac — or  the  Virginia  as  the  Confeder- 
ates had  newly  named  her — steamed  out  into  Hamp- 
ton Roads  and  promptly  destroyed  two  United  States 
ships  of  war,  the  Congress  and  the  Cumberland, 
Her  performance  created  the  greatest  consternation. 
It  was  obvious  that  no  wooden  ship  could  live  in  con- 
flict with  such  a  craft  as  this.  With  such  guns  as 
were  then  in  use  her  sides  were  impenetrable  by  shot 
or  shell.  With  her  steel  nose  it  was  easily  possible 
for  her  to  ram  and  sink  any  ship  of  any  type  then  in 
use  without  danger  to  herself. 


300         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

It  was  the  plan  of  the  Confederates  to  have  this 
ironclad  destroy  the  wooden  fleet  in  Hampton 
Roads,  as  it  was  obviously  and  easily  possible  for  it  to 
do,  proceed  at  once  to  New  York  and  work  havoc 
there,  and  then  steam  south  to  raise  the  blockade  by 
sinking,  one  after  another,  the  wooden  ships  of  the 
blockading  fleet. 

But  just  after  the  Virginia's  first  success  was 
achieved,  there  steamed  into  Hampton  Roads  Cap- 
tain Ericsson's  iron-clad,  turreted  ship,  the  Monitor. 
The  next  day  these  two  armored  vessels  tried  conclu- 
sions with  each  other.  At  the  end  of  the  fight  the  Vir- 
ginia retired  to  Portsmouth  damaged  and  discredited. 
The  Monitor  had  proved  to  be  more  than  her  match, 
and  while  it  had  not  succeeded  in  destroying  her  it 
had  demonstrated  its  own  superiority  as  a  marine 
fighting  machine. 

More  important  still  was  the  fact  that  while  the 
South  had  no  shipyards  in  which  new  and  improved 
Virginias  could  be  built,  the  North  was  abundantly 
able  to  reproduce  the  Monitor  in  other  ships  of  like 
kind  without  number  or  limit  and  to  better  her  type 
and  construction  in  the  light  of  experience. 

This  conflict  is  historically  interesting  as  the  birth 
scene  of  modern  naval  armaments.  It  was  the  first 
direct  conflict  of  armored  ships.  It  was  the  first  in- 
stance in  history  in  which  ironclad  met  ironclad.  It 
marked  the  dawn  of  a  new  era  in  naval  construction, 
the  natal  day  of  all  modern  navies.  It  was  the  begin- 
ning from  which  have  sprung  the  battleship,  the 
armored  cruiser,  the  protected  cruiser,  the  gunboat 
and  the  torpedo-boat  destroyer,  as  we  know  them  now. 


Between  Manassas  and  Shiloh  301 

The  fight  between  the  Southern  ironclad  and  the 
ships  it  destroyed,  and  the  contest  next  day  between 
it  and  the  Monitor,  have  been  widely  celebrated  in 
song  and  story.  But  the  real  significance  of  those 
contests  lies  rather  in  that  to  which  they  gave  birth 
than  in  that  which  in  themselves  they  were. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

Shiloh 

McClellan's  advance  upon  Richmond,  in  its  begin- 
nings at  least,  antedated  the  great  conflict  at  Shiloh. 
But  its  crisis  did  not  come  until  much  later,  nor  did 
it  in  its  early  progress  involve  aught  that  was  of  sig- 
nificance in  its  bearing  upon  the  conduct  and  outcome 
of  the  war. 

It  seems  proper  therefore  to  discuss  Shiloh  and 
other  operations  in  the  Mississippi  Valley  first,  leav- 
ing the  campaign  in  Virginia  for  later  consideration. 

The  Confederates,  before  the  fall  of  Fort  Donel- 
son  and  Fort  Henry,  were  maintaining  a  line  of 
offensive  defense  in  Kentucky.  This  line  extended 
from  the  Big  Sandy  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  state 
to  Columbus  on  the  Mississippi  river  in  the  extreme 
west. 

The  line  was  in  many  respects  defective.  The 
Confederate  center  of  operations  was  at  Bowling 
Green,  while  the  two  ends  of  the  defensive  line  lay 
much  farther  north  than  that.  The  line  thus  consti- 
tuted what  in  military  parlance  is  known  as  a  reenter- 
ing angle.  The  enemy  pushing  into  such  an  angle 
with  forces  greater  than  those  that  defended  it  or 
even  with  an  inferior  force,  had  easy  choice  to  attack 
on  either  side  as  he  pleased,  concentrating  at  will, 
while  compelling  the  Confederates  to  scatter  their 

302 


Shiloh  303 

forces  along  the  whole  of  an  extensive  line  by  way  of 
defending  all  parts  of  it  equally. 

It  was  the  original  purpose  of  those  who  devised 
this  defensive  system  to  correct  the  fault  by  pushing 
their  center  forward  from  Bowling  Green  to  Paducah 
on  the  Ohio  river,  nearly  fifty  miles  above  the  mouth 
of  that  stream.  Had  this  been  accomplished,  it  would 
have  made  the  angle  of  defense  a  salient  instead  of 
a  reentering  one. 

Let  us  explain  the  advantage  of  this  for  the  benefit 
of  the  non-military  reader.  If  the  Confederates 
could  have  established  themselves  at  Paducah  with 
their  lines  trending  off  to  the  southeast  on  the  one 
side  and  to  the  southwest  on  the  other,  they,  instead 
of  their  enemies,  would  have  had  choice  of  positions 
in  which  to  concentrate.  Assailed  at  any  point  it 
would  have  been  easy  for  them  to  throw  all  possible 
force  quickly  to  the  defense  of  the  threatened  position- 
Grant  interfered  with  all  this  planning  when  he 
moved  up  the  Ohio,  and  seized  upon  Paducah,  which 
was  quickly  fortified  so  strongly  as  to  render  the 
execution  of  the  scheme  thereafter  impracticable. 
From  that  time  forward  it  was  clear  that  the  Con- 
federates must  either  maintain  their  line  of  defense 
by  means  of  a  vast  and  dangerously  unmanageable 
reentering  angle,  or  they  must  withdraw  from  their 
two  advanced  wing  points.  To  do  this  latter  thing 
would  have  been  to  abandon  Kentucky  completely, 
and  it  was  no  part  of  the  Confederate  program  to 
do  that. 

A  second  defect  in  this  scheme  of  defense  was  that 
the  line  thus  formed  was  traversed  by  two  rivers,  the 


304         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

Tennessee  and  the  Cumberland,  both  practically 
navigable  by  steamboats.  It  was  obvious  to  ordinary 
common-sense  that  should  both  or  either  of  these 
rivers  at  any  time  fall  under  control  of  the  enemy, 
with  his  multitudinous  gunboats  and  other  river  craft 
which  could  easily  be  made  to  carry  guns,  the  western 
half  of  the  Confederate  force  must  be  completely 
and  at  once  cut  oif  from  all  but  a  very  roundabout 
and  slow  communication  with  its  allies  on  the  east. 

Here  was  a  danger  which  must  have  presented 
itself  obtrusively  to  the  minds  of  those  who  formed 
and  ordered  this  military  arrangement.  It  is  difficult 
for  a  military  critic  in  this  later  day  to  understand 
or  to  conceive  upon  what  principle  of  scientific  war- 
fare such  a  line  was  accepted  as  even  tolerably  judi- 
cious. Its  adoption  seems  in  fact  to  have  been 
determined  more  by  political  than  by  military  consid- 
erations. 

In  order  to  meet  the  difficulty  the  Confederates 
created  the  two  great  fortresses — Henry  and  Donel- 
son — to  defend  the  rivers.  These  forts  were  curi- 
ously misplaced.  They  were  located  one  upon  the 
one  river,  and  the  other  upon  the  other,  at  a  point  near 
the  dividing  line  between  Kentucky  and  Tennessee. 
At  that  point  the  two  rivers  run  within  eleven  miles 
of  each  other.  But  a  little  farther  down  the  streams 
— that  is  to  say  a  little  farther  north — their  course 
brings  them  within  three  miles  of  each  other.  Here 
obviously  on  all  accounts  was  the  point  at  which  the 
defensive  works  should  have  been  constructed.  In 
that  case  the  two  forts  would  have  been  within  easy 
supporting  distance  of  each  other  and  neither  could 


SUloh  305 

have  been  assailed  from  the  rear.  Moreover,  we  have 
the  authority  of  no  less  eminent  an  engineer  than 
General  Beauregard  for  saying  that  the  ground  at 
this  point  is  well  fitted  by  its  natural  conformation 
for  purposes  of  defense,  while  at  the  point  actu- 
ally selected  for  the  two  fortresses  it  is  peculiarly 
lacking  in  that  advantage.  But  the  more  defensible 
position  was  in  Kentucky  and  purely  political  con- 
siderations had  weight  in  determining  the  choice  of 
the  less  advantageous  point  of  defense  in  Tennessee. 

The  defective  character  of  this  line  of  defense  and 
the  mistake  underlying  its  acceptance  were  strongly 
emphasized  after  the  overthrow  of  ZoUicoff er  at  Mill 
Springs  and  the  pushing  forward  of  General 
Thomas's  forces  to  more  southerly  points.  This 
movement  placed  a  threatening  force  on  the  right 
flank  of  the  Confederate  line  of  defense.  Neverthe- 
less, the  Confederate  War  Department  clung  to  its 
mistaken  policy.  It  lived  at  that  time  in  a  fool's  para- 
dise in  which  facts  counted  for  little  in  comparison 
with  theories,  and  in  which  optimism  was  expected  to 
serve  the  purpose  of  guns  and  brigades  and  defensive 
works. 

When  at  the  end  of  January,  1862,  the  War  De- 
partment asked  General  Beauregard  to  go  to  that 
region  as  second  in  command  under  General  Albert 
Sydney  Johnston,  it  confidently  assured  him  that  the 
troops  under  General  Johnston's  command  exceeded 
seventy  thousand  in  number.  On  his  arrival  there 
General  Beauregard  found  that  in  fact  these  widely 
and  dangerously  scattered  forces  numbered  less  than 
forty-five  thousand  and  that  the  several  parts  could 


306         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

not  possibly  be  made  to  support  each  other.  He  found 
also  that  the  strength  in  fortification,  in  guns  and  in 
men,  which  should  have  been  concentrated  mainly  in 
Forts  Henry  and  Donelson,  had  been  largely  wasted 
at  Columbus,  a  position  naturally  indefensible  or  de- 
fensible by  a  small  as  easily  as  by  a  large  force.  He 
found  that  vast  quantities  of  precious  stores  had  been 
warehoused  there  in  face  of  the  fact  that  Columbus 
was  the  most  northerly  and  the  most  exposed  point 
on  the  entire  defensive  line. 

When  General  Beauregard  joined  General  John- 
ston and  made  his  study  of  conditions,  he  pointed  out 
all  these  defects  in  the  line  and  all  the  dangers  they 
involved.  General  Beauregard  had,  since  the  battle 
of  Manassas,  developed  an  aggressive  tendency 
which  he  had  strangely  lacked  in  the  earlier  months  of 
his  career  as  a  general.  He  had  grown  into  a  real 
general.  He  therefore  proposed  to  General  Johnston 
an  instant  offensive  movement. 

Here  it  is  important  for  the  reader  clearly  to  under- 
stand the  situation. 

General  Polk,  commanding  the  Confederates  at 
Columbus,  was  threatened  by  a  superior  force  under 
General  Pope  in  Missouri,  on  the  other  side  of  the 
river.  General  Johnston's  position  at  Bowling  Green 
was  threatened  by  a  distinctly  superior  army  under 
General  Buell  which  lay  scarcely  more  than  a  two 
days'  march  to  the  north  and  east.  Moreover  the 
position  of  Bowling  Green  was  already  in  effect 
turned  by  Thomas's  advance  from  eastern  Kentucky 
towards  eastern  Tennessee.  In  the  meanwhile  Gen- 
eral Grant,  supported  by  the  gunboats,  was  in  pos- 


Shiloh  307 

session  of  Paducah  and  threatening  to  advance  with 
15,000  men  for  the  reduction  of  Fort  Henry  and 
Fort  Donelson. 

The  Confederate  forces  were  scattered  beyond  all 
possibility  of  effective  cooperation  except  by  a  con- 
centration in  advance  involving  a  radical  change  in 
the  scheme  and  line  of  defense.  There  were  at  that 
time  about  14,000  Confederate  effectives  at  Bowling 
Green;  about  5,500  at  Forts  Henry  and  Donelson; 
about  8,000  near  Clarksville;  and  about  15,000  at  and 
near  Columbus.  Other  detached  forces  at  various 
points  swelled  the  total  of  the  Confederate  forces  in 
Kentucky  and  Tennessee  to  about  45,000  fighting 
men. 

Grant  was  threatening  the  river  forts  with  15,000 
men.  Pope  had  30,000  men  or  more  in  southeast 
Missouri,  threatening  Columbus.  Buell  had  a  large 
and  rapidly  increasing  army,  numbering  from 
40,000  to  60,000  men  (overestimated  by  Beauregard 
at  75,000  or  80,000)  at  Bacon's  Creek,  within  strik- 
ing distance,  forty  miles,  of  Bowling  Green. 

It  was  obviously  easy  for  Pope  to  occupy  Polk  at 
Columbus  and  for  Buell  to  engage  Johnston  at 
Bowling  Green  with  an  overwhelming  force,  while 
Grant  should  advance  to  the  assault  of  Forts  Henry 
and  Donelson. 

Buell,  with  his  army  of  40,000  or  50,000  men, 
might  easily  have  overwhelmed  Johnston's  14,000 
at  Bowling  Green.  Pope  could  have  so  far  engaged 
Polk  at  Columbus  as  to  prevent  the  detachment  even 
of  a  squad  from  that  quarter  for  Johnston's  rein- 
forcement.   Grant  in  the  meanwhile  could  make  his 


308         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

advance  with  15,000  men — to  be  reinforced  presently 
to  27,000 — and  the  gunboats,  against  Forts  Henry 
and  Donelson,  defended  as  those  works  were  by  no 
more  than  5,500  men. 

It  was  Beauregard's  urgent  advice  to  withdraw  all 
but  garrison  forces  from  Columbus,  Bowling  Green 
and  Clarksville,  and  to  concentrate  an  overmastering- 
force  for  resistance  to  Grant  in  front  of  Fort 
Donelson. 

This  plan  was  in  some  degree  acted  upon.  That 
is  to  say  enough  men  were  concentrated  at  the  forts 
to  swell  the  record  of  Grant's  subsequent  capture  to 
about  15,000  men,  but  not  enough  to  defend  the  posi- 
tion. The  plan  might  have  failed  had  an  attempt 
been  made  to  execute  it  in  its  full  scope.  Attempted 
by  half  measures  as  it  was  its  failure  was  clearly  fore- 
ordained. Grant  captured  the  forts  and  their  de- 
fending garrisons  and  made  himself  master  of  the 
two  rivers  which,  next  to  the  Mississippi,  were  of  most 
vital  importance  to  both  sides.  After  the  forts  had 
fallen  the  occupation  of  Nashville  was  quite  a  matter 
of  course,  and  equally  so  was  the  necessity  of  the 
Confederate  evacuation  of  Kentucky  and  of  prac- 
tically all  of  Tennessee. 

Presently  after  being  "kept  in"  by  Halleck  Grant 
was  restored  to  command — though  still  as  a  mere 
volunteer  officer  under  censure  and  still  subject  to 
General  Halleck's  often  paralyzing  domination. 
Grant  instantly  began,  after  his  habit,  to  plan  a  fur- 
ther campaign  of  damage  to  the  enemies  of  the 
Union.  One  opportunity  had  been  denied  to  him. 
He  sought  another. 


Shiloh  309 

In  the  meanwhile  his  capture  of  Forts  Henry  and 
Donelson  had  split  the  Confederate  line  of  defense 
in  two  and  rendered  its  further  maintenance  an 
utter  impossibility.  With  the  Tennessee  and  Cum- 
berland rivers  in  Federal  possession  it  was  manifestly 
absurd  to  think  of  maintaining  a  line  of  defense 
which  those  rivers  traversed.  The  success  of  Grant 
had  completely  ended  all  possibility  of  cooperation 
between  the  eastern  and  western  wings  of  that  de- 
fensive line.  The  forces  west  of  the  Tennessee  and 
those  east  of  that  river  must  henceforth  act  inde- 
pendently and  rather  hopelessly,  or  else  they  must 
retire  to  a  new  line  farther  south  upon  which  coopera- 
tion might  be  possible. 

It  was  decided  to  retire.  Bowling  Green  was 
evacuated  and  the  Federal  General  Buell  instantly 
occupied  it.  A  little  later  Nashville  was  evacuated 
by  the  Confederates  in  behalf  of  a  less  exposed  posi- 
tion. It  was  at  the  same  time  determined  to  with- 
draw from  Columbus  all  the  forces  assembled  there 
except  a  garrison  sufficient  to  work  the  guns,  and  to 
defend  the  point  for  a  time  with  the  aid  of  Commo- 
dore Hollins's  gunboats  in  the  Mississippi. 

The  new  line  of  defense  adopted  by  the  Confed- 
erates was  the  Memphis  and  Charleston  railroad, 
running  through  southern  Tennessee  and  northern 
Mississippi,  Alabama,  etc.  This  line  presented  no 
natural  advantages  of  defense,  but  it  covered  the 
most  vitally  important  railroad  communications  of 
the  Confederacy.  Furthermore  it  will  be  observed 
that  this  line  of  defense  lies  almost  exactly  mid- 
way between  the  Ohio  River  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 


310         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

In  other  words,  under  Grant's  energetic  aggres- 
siveness, the  Federal  control  had  been  pushed  from 
the  Ohio  river  nearly  half  way  to  the  gulf.  The 
process  of  "splitting  the  Confederacy  in  two," 
was  already  well  advanced  at  the  beginning  of  the 
spring  of  1862. 

It  was  always  the  keynote  of  Grant's  policy  to 
"press  things,"  and  after  his  period  of  suspension 
from  command  he  began  again  to  carry  out  that 
obviously  wise  policy. 

As  the  dominant  thought  in  General  Grant's 
strategy  from  beginning  to  end  of  the  war,  he  was 
strongly  impressed  with  the  fact  that  the  North  was 
vastly  superior  to  the  South  in  all  military  resources, 
and  as  a  man  of  practical  common  sense  it  was  his 
idea  that  this  superiority  in  men,  arms,  ammunition, 
food  supplies,  and  all  else  that  tends  to  help  military 
endeavor  should  be  insistently  and  persistently 
utilized  in  the  breaking  of  Confederate  resistance 
within  the  briefest  possible  time.  The  ancient 
thought  of  divine  arbitrament  in  arms  had  no  place 
in  his  mind.  The  notion  was  incredible  to  him  that 
two  armies  should  stand  still  and  do  nothing  while 
a  David  on  the  one  side  and  a  Goliath  on  the  other 
should  make  a  personal  trial  of  conclusions.  He  was 
not  lacking  in  chivalry  or  sentiment,  as  abundantly 
appeared  on  several  conspicuous  occasions,  but  he  had 
besides  an  all-dominating  common  sense,  and  he  used 
it.  He  fully  agreed  with  the  Confederate  General 
Forrest  in  his  definition  of  strategy  as  the  art  of 
"getting  there  first  with  the  most  men."  He  did  not 
understand  modern  warfare  to  be  in  any  wise  akin  to 


Shiloh  811 

a  medieval  tournament  in  which  equality  of  opportun- 
ity must  be  sought  at  all  costs.  Quite  on  the  contrary 
he  regarded  war  as  a  perfectly  practical  matter  of 
business,  to  be  carried  on  as  such.  He  clearly  saw  it 
to  be  what  it  is  and  always  must  be,  a  cruel  survival 
from  barbaric  times,  a  measuring  of  brute  strength 
in  that  last  appeal  of  humanity,  to  the  arbitrament  of 
arms. 

His  common  sense  taught  him  that  whatever  of 
science  there  might  be  involved  in  the  conduct  of  war, 
its  results  depended  after  all  upon  brute  force.  It 
was  therefore  his  plan  always  to  bring  to  bear  all  that 
he  possessed  of  brute  force  for  the  solution  of  the 
problems  at  issue,  and,  wherever  he  could,  to  press  his 
adversary  with  heavier  battalions  than  that  adversary 
could  muster. 

Having  been  set  free  again  with  permission  to 
resume  active  warfare.  Grant  intuitively  desired  to 
push  forward,  pressing  his  adversary  at  every  point, 
seizing  upon  every  assailable  position  and  making 
himself  master  of  every  place  from  which  further 
war  could  be  waged  with  hope  of  success. 

As  we  have  seen,  he  had  been  called  back  from  this 
program  of  common  sense  after  his  capture  of  Forts 
Henry  and  Donelson,  and  until  March  13  he  was  not 
again  allowed  to  do  anything  whatever  or  to  use  his 
abilities  in  any  manner  in  the  public  service. 

By  making  himself  master  of  the  two  rivers  he 
had  completely  destroyed  the  Confederate  line  and 
scheme  of  defense.  He  had  completely  cut  off  that 
part  of  the  Confederate  force  which  had  its  head- 
quarters at  Bowling  Green  from  that  part  of  it  whose 


312         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

chief  seat  was  at  Columbus.  So  complete  was  this 
severance,  as  a  glance  at  a  map  will  show,  that 
General  Albert  Sydney  Johnston  sent  General  Beau- 
regard at  once  to  command  the  western  force  as  a 
separate  army  with  specific  instructions  to  act  upon 
his  own  judgment,  bearing  in  mind  that  cooperation 
between  the  two  forces  was  no  longer  possible. 

It  was  surely  a  great  strategic  victory  for  Grant 
thus  to  break  an  elaborate  line  of  defense  and  thus 
completely  to  divide  an  army  already  inferior  to  the 
armies  opposing  it  in  numbers,  resources  and  equip- 
ments. But  this  was  not  all  of  it.  By  this  division 
of  the  Confederate  forces  Grant  was  left  free  to 
attack  either  half  of  the  Southern  army  at  will,  with 
overwhelming  numbers — for  in  addition  to  his  own 
38,000  men — for  his  force  had  been  swelled  to  that 
strength — ^he  had  Buell's  much  larger  force  within 
easy  call,  to  say  nothing  of  Thomas's  command,  now 
foot-loose  for  aggressive  campaigning.  It  is  safe  to 
say  that  had  Grant  been  permitted,  he  could  and 
would  have  fallen  upon  and  crushed  the  Confeder- 
ates under  Johnston,  with  an  absolutely  overwhelm- 
ing army.  He  could  and  would  have  conquered 
every  remaining  Confederate  stronghold  in  Tennes- 
see and  northern  Georgia  and  Alabama  and  he  could 
and  probably  would  have  made  within  the  first  year 
of  the  war  that  "march  to  the  sea,"  either  at  Mobile 
or  at  Savannah,  which  was  left  for  Sherman  to  make 
years  later. 

On  the  other  hand,  with  a  strong  detachment  he 
could  easily  have  destroyed  the  long  and  exceedingly 
vulnerable  line  of  communication  that  connected 
Columbus,  Kentucky,  with  the  South. 


Shiloh  818 

At  Jackson,   Tennessee,  the  Mississippi   Central 
railroad  coming  up  from  New  Orleans  and  the  Mo- 
bile   and    Ohio    line    running    north    from   Mobile 
formed  a  junction.      From  that  point  north  to  Co- 
lumbus, there  was  but  one  fragile  line  of  single  track, 
earth-ballasted  railroad,  serving  as  a  connecting  link 
between  the  South  and  its  excessively  advanced  west- 
ern position  at  Columbus.       It  is  difficult  to  imag- 
ine a  line  of  military  communication  more  vulner- 
able than  this  little  thread.       The  country  between 
the  Tennessee  river  and  this  railroad  line  was  quite 
open  and  there  was  neither  fortress  nor  force,  ex- 
cept here   and  there  an  easily  conquerable   picket 
post  to  defend  the  communication.     If  Grant  had 
been  left  with  a  free  hand  there  is  no  doubt  whatever 
that  he  would  instantly  have  sent  westward  a  force 
too  small  in  itself  for  its  detachment  to  weaken  him, 
but  large  enough  to  make  itself  instantly  and  com- 
pletely master  of  this  railroad  line.    He  would  thus 
have  cut  off  all  communication  between  Columbus 
and  the  South.    He  would  have  made  himself  quickly 
master  of  all  the  forces  and  all  the  supplies  and  all  the 
ordnance  that  had  been  foolishly  concentrated   at 
Columbus.     He  would  without  a  battle  have  com- 
pelled the  surrender  of  that  stronghold,  with  all  its 
preposterously  numerous  garrison,  with  all  its  great 
guns,  and  with  all  of  the  rich  store  of  supplies  and 
ammunition  and  other  war  material  collected  there. 
It  was  another  absurdity  of  the  early  war  that 
Grant  was  forbidden  to  do  any  of  these  things,  when 
the  time  for  their  doing  was  ripe.    By  orders  of  his 
"superior  officer"  Halleck,  Grant  was  held  idk  at  the 


314  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

forts  that  he  had  conquered  while  this  opportunity 
sHpped  away.  From  the  sixteenth  of  February  to 
the  thirteenth  of  March  this  only  general  who  knew 
how  to  do  things  and  how  to  get  things  done  was  con- 
demned to  idleness  and  inaction  by  the  absurd  order 
of  a  distinctly  unfriendly  martinet. 

In  the  meantime  the  Confederates,  not  being  fools, 
utilized  the  opportunity  given  them  by  this  delay,  to 
rescue  themselves  from  their  peculiarly  perilous  posi- 
tion. Johnston  withdrew  the  eastern  half  of  the 
Confederate  army  from  Bowling  Green  to  the  line 
of  the  railroad  that  led  from  Memphis  eastward. 
Beauregard,  in  command  of  the  western  half  of  the 
army  which  Grant  had  so  completely  sundered,  clearly 
saw  the  situation  and  promptly  retired  his  forces  from 
Columbus  to  Corinth,  Mississippi,  on  the  line  of  the 
Memphis  and  Charleston  railroad  at  its  intersection 
of  the  Mobile  and  Ohio  line.  He  had  in  the  mean- 
time transferred  to  New  Madrid  on  the  Mississippi, 
and  to  Island  Number  10  in  that  stream,  the  best  of 
the  ordnance  in  Columbus,  thus  providing  as  effect- 
ually as  he  could  for  the  defense  of  the  great  river 
and  for  its  blockading  against  Federal  gunboats  and 
still  more  important  Federal  transports  bearing 
troops  and  supplies  to  points  below. 

Corinth  is  a  little  village  in  the  extreme  north  of 
Mississippi.  It  has  no  pronounced  defensive  advan- 
tages whatsoever.  It  lies  in  a  region  of  nearly  flat 
lands  with  no  line  of  bold  hills  to  protect  it  and  no 
difficult  stream  to  serve  as  a  base  of  defense.  But  it 
lies  upon  that  line  of  railroad  which  the  Confederates 
must  defend  if  they  were  to  preserve  their  communi- 


ShUoh  315 

cations  between  the  east  and  the  west  at  tHe  crossing 
of  the  north  and  south  Hne. 

At  Corinth  the  Confederates  concentrated  all  their 
forces.  Against  Corinth  Grant  instantly  directed 
his  operations  as  soon  as  he  was  restored  to  command 
and  permitted  by  his  superior  officer  to  carry  on  the 
war  for  his  country  upon  lines  marked  out  by  com- 
mon-sense. 

He  moved  at  once  to  Pittsburg  Landing  on  the 
Tennessee  river.  Pittsburg  Landing  lies  about 
twenty  miles  north  by  east  of  Corinth  and  between 
the  two  there  is  no  considerable  stream,  no  important 
range  of  hills,  nothing  in  the  shape  of  physical  con- 
formation of  the  ground  that  could  aid  Confederate 
defense  or  facilitate  Confederate  aggression.  On  the 
contrary  the  streams  near  Pittsburg  ministered  ex- 
clusively to  Federal  purposes. 

When  Grant  arrived  at  Pittsburg  Landing  he 
found  the  army  encamped  about  equally  upon  the 
eastern  and  western  sides  of  the  river.  He  instantly 
and  boldly  ordered  the  whole  of  it  to  the  western  or 
Confederate  bank  of  the  stream. 

This  was  a  very  daring  thing  to  do.  For  with  the 
Tennessee  river  behind  him  and  with  no  means  of 
easily  crossing  it  in  retreat.  Grant  must  face  the  cer- 
tain surrender  of  his  army  in  case  of  an  unsuccessful 
battle  in  that  position.  In  such  an  event  there  could 
be  no  alternative.  But  it  was  not  Grant's  habit  of 
mind  to  look  for  alternatives.  He  boldly  took  the 
risk  as  it  was  his  custom  to  do.  He  threw  his  whole 
army  across  the  river  and  there  waited  for  the  arrival 
of  Buell's  stronger  force,  which  had  been  ordered  by 


316  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

Halleck  to  join  him  and  was  marching  in  very 
leisurely  fashion  to  do  so.  The  army  under  Grant's 
own  immediate  command  numbered  now  about 
38,000  men,  increased  almost  immediately  to  45,000. 
That  under  Buell  which  was  strolling  westward  to 
reinforce  him  numbered  more  than  40,000.  He  thus 
had  prospect  of  an  overwhelming  force  with  which  to 
assail  the  Confederates  at  Corinth,  where  under  Beau- 
regard's tireless  activity  they  had  succeeded  in  concen- 
trating about  45,000  or  50,000  men,  a  large  part  of 
this  force  consisting  of  raw  recruits  unorganized, 
undrilled,  undisciplined  and  extremely  ill  armed. 

Whether  Halleck  planned  this  concentration  of 
Grant's  and  Buell's  armies  for  an  advance  upon 
Corinth  as  his  partisans  contend,  or  whether  Grant 
planned  it  and  Halleck  merely  accepted  the  plan  as 
others  stoutly  assert,  is  a  matter  of  no  historical  con- 
sequence, whatever  biographical  interest  it  may  have. 
In  either  case  the  purpose  of  the  concentration  was 
to  move  upon  Corinth  in  irresistible  force,  overthrow 
the  Confederates  there  and  seize  upon  the  two  im- 
portant lines  of  railroad  which  intersect  each  other  at 
that  point.  It  was  at  any  rate  Halleck's  purpose  to 
command  in  this  campaign  in  person.  But  it  was  not 
intended  to  advance  upon  Corinth  until  Grant's  and 
Buell's  armies  should  form  a  junction,  and  there  was 
no  thought  or  expectation  that  the  Confederates 
would  themselves  assume  the  offensive.  General 
Halleck  planned  to  leave  St.  Louis  not  earlier  than 
April  7,  and  perhaps  several  days  later,  for  Pitts- 
burg Landing.  In  the  meanwhile  General  Grant  had 
posted  his  army  loosely  and  had  thrown  up  no  earth- 


Shiloh  817 

works  in  the  field.  All  his  procedures  indicated  that 
he  did  not  expect  to  be  molested  where  he  lay  or  to 
encounter  the  enemy  until  he  should  go  in  search  of 
him.  Indeed,  he  telegraphed  Halleck  on  the  fifth  of 
April,  the  very  day  before  the  battle,  saying,  "The 
main  force  of  the  enemy  is  at  Corinth,  with  troops  at 
different  points  east.  ...  I  have  scarcely  the  faint- 
est idea  of  an  attack  (general  one)  being  made  upon 
us,  but  will  be  prepared  should  such  a  thing  take 
place." 

At  the  very  moment  when  that  dispatch  was 
penned  the  Confederates  with  their  entire  strength 
were  actually  on  march  to  assail  an  enemy  who  had 
"scarcely  the  faintest  idea  of  an  attack"  being  made 
upon  him  either  then  or  later.  In  his  memoirs  Gen- 
eral Grant  said: 

"When  all  reinforcements  should  have  arrived  I 
expected  to  take  the  initiative  by  marching  on  Cor- 
inth and  had  no  expectation  of  needing  fortifications. 
.  .  .  The  fact  is  I  regarded  the  campaign  we  were 
engaged  in  as  an  offensive  one  and  had  no  idea  that 
the  enemy  would  leave  strong  intrenchments  to  take 
the  initiative  when  he  knew  he  would  be  attacked 
where  he  was,  if  he  remained." 

It  had  been  the  purpose  of  General  Johnston  to 
deliver  his  blow  on  the  morning  of  the  fifth  of  April, 
overthrow  Grant,  and  be  prepared  to  fall  upon 
Buell  when  he  should  arrive.  But  matters  of  detail 
went  so  far  wrong  that  the  Confederates,  advancing 
from  Corinth  to  attack,  did  not  reach  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Shiloh  church,  where  Sherman  was  posted 
without  fortifications,  until  nightfall  of  that  day. 


318         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

They  bivouacked  very  near  the  Federal  lines,  but 
strangely  enough  their  presence  in  force  was  not  dis- 
covered by  the  enemy  they  purposed  to  fall  upon  at 
daylight.  In  the  meanwhile  the  head  of  Buell's 
column  had  come  up  and  the  rest  of  it  was  danger- 
ously near  at  hand. 

The  Confederates  made  their  assault  with  great 
impetuosity  at  dawn  of  April  6.  The  first  that  Sher- 
man, who  held  the  advance  of  Grant's  position,  knew 
of  the  impending  battle  was  when  the  Confederates 
forty  thousand  strong  rushed  upon  his  camps  and 
after  a  brief  but  stubborn  struggle  carried  them, 
Sherman  being  driven  back  so  hurriedly  that  he  left 
his  tents  standing  and  the  breakfasts  of  his  men  not 
yet  cooked.  The  first  that  Grant  knew  of  a  tremen- 
dous attack  of  which  he  had  had  "scarcely  the  faintest 
idea,"  was  when  at  his  headquarters  at  Savannah  sev- 
eral miles  down  the  river  he  heard  the  guns  at  work 
at  Shiloh. 

There  has  been  much  and  angry  discussion  of  the 
question  whether  or  not  Grant  and  Sherman  were 
"surprised,"  in  the  military  acceptation  of  the  term, 
by  the  Confederate  onslaught  at  Shiloh.  The  point 
has  little  historical  importance,  but  in  the  light  of  all 
the  facts  since  disclosed  by  the  records  it  is  difficult 
to  interpret  what  happened  there  otherwise  than  as 
a  complete  surprise,  which  but  for  the  excellent  dis- 
cipline of  the  Federal  troops  and  their  superb  fight- 
ing quality  might  easily  have  ended  in  disaster.  We 
have  seen  that  Halleck  in  St.  Louis  did  not  intend  to 
leave  for  the  front,  where  he  expected  to  command 
in  person,  until  the  next  day  or  even  later.    We  have 


SUloh  319 

seen  how  confident  Grant  was  in  his  belief  that  the 
Confederates  intended  no  general  attack  either  then 
or  later  and  how  he  planned  himself  to  take  the  offens- 
ive. It  is  certain  that  Grant's  forces  were  not  dis- 
posed as  they  would  have  been  if  an  assault  by  the 
enemy  had  been  anticipated.  The  several  advance 
corps  were  posted  with  little  or  no  reference  to  co- 
operation between  them  to  resist  an  enemy  assaulting 
in  force.  No  line  of  battle  had  been  formed  or  in 
any  way  provided  for.  Sherman,  who  was  first 
assailed,  was  resting  quietly  in  camps  which  would 
very  certainly  have  been  stripped  for  action  if  an 
attack  had  been  expected.  Indeed,  Sherman's  very 
latest  reports  to  Grant  had  expressed  the  utmost  con- 
fidence that  no  attack  was  in  contemplation,  and  that 
the  Confederates  would  do  nothing  more  than  annoy 
the  pickets.  He  reported  to  Grant  that  they  "will 
not  press  our  pickets  far."  In  brief  it  is  obvious  that 
neither  Halleck  at  St.  Louis,  nor  Grant  at  Savannah, 
Tennessee,  nor  Sherman,  holding  the  front  at  Shiloh 
meeting  house,  anticipated  a  battle  in  front  of  Pitts- 
burg Landing.  They  expected  to  fight  on  the  offens- 
ive at  Corinth  when  they  should  be  ready  to  advance, 
but  the  thought  of  having  to  defend  themselves 
against  a  Confederate  force  assailing  them  at  Shiloh 
seems  never  to  have  occurred  to  them  until  the  Con- 
federates fell  upon  Sherman's  camp  with  their  "y^ll»" 
for  a  first  warning  of  their  presence. 

Sherman  with  two  brigades  lay  in  front.  The  twa 
brigades  were  widely  separated,  as  they  would  not 
have  been  had  an  attack  in  force  been  regarded  as 
even  a  possibility.    McClernand's  division  lay  far  in 


320         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

rear  of  Sherman.  Prentiss,  Hurlbut,  W.  H.  L.  Wal- 
lace and  the  commander  of  C.  F.  Smith's  force — that 
general  being  ill — with  their  several  divisions  were 
scattered  about  in  the  rear  all  the  way  to  Pittsburg 
Landing,  while  Lew  Wallace  with  about  five  thou- 
sand men  was  posted  several  miles  farther  down  the 
river  in  complete  isolation  from  the  rest  of  the  force. 

General  Van  Home,  writing  under  the  direct  in-' 
spiration  of  General  George  H.  Thomas  and  with  all 
the  orders  and  dispatches  under  his  eye,  says  that  the 
several  divisions  "were  widely  separated  and  did  not 
sustain  such  relations  to  each  other  that  it  was  possible 
to  form  quickly  a  connected  defensive  line;  they  had 
no  defenses  and  no  designated  line  for  defense  in  the 
event  of  a  sudden  attack,  and  there  was  no  general  on 
the  field  to  take  by  special  authority  the  command  of 
the  whole  force  in  an  emergency." 

The  ground  in  front  of  Pittsburg  Landing  was 
especially  well  adapted  to  defense.  Flanked  on 
either  side  by  creeks  difficult  to  cross,  it  compelled  the 
assailants  to  depend  almost  entirely  upon  direct 
assault  in  front  with  little  chance  of  success  in  any 
effort  they  might  make  to  turn  either  flank. 

There  was  as  yet  no  officer  authorized  to  take  gen- 
eral command.  General  Grant  being  at  Savannah,  far 
from  the  field,  but  the  division  commanders,  each  act- 
ing upon  his  own  responsibility,  quickly  responded  to 
the  need,  and  not  long  after  Sherman's  camps  had 
been  overrun  there  was  a  very  tolerable  line  of  battle 
contesting  the  Confederate  advance  with  great  obsti- 
nacy and  determination. 

In  the  meanwhile  Grant  had  ordered  up  such  rein- 


Shiloh  321 

f  orcements  as  were  at  hand  and  was  himself  hurrying 
to  the  scene  to  give  personal  direction  to  the  battle. 

He  found  multitudes  of  stragglers  and  skulkers 
cowering  under  the  river  bank,  as  is  always  the  case 
during  a  battle  when  a  place  of  refuge  near  at  hand 
offers  a  tempting  security  to  the  cowardly.  But 
apart  from  these  spiritless  ones  he  found  the  men  of 
his  army  bearing  themselves  right  gallantly  and  con- 
testing every  inch  of  the  ground  over  which  the  Con- 
federates were  slowly  beating  them  back  towards  the 
river. 

The  purpose  of  the  Confederates  was  to  break 
through  the  left  of  Grant's  line  and  reach  the  river, 
thus  placing  themselves  on  their  enemy's  flank,  threat- 
ening his  rear  and  imperiling  his  entire  army.  Gen- 
eral Albert  Sydney  Johnston  had  been  mortally 
wounded  early  in  the  afternoon,  but  Beauregard, 
upon  whom  the  Confederate  command  had  devolved, 
adopted  and  sought  to  carry  out  the  strategy  deter- 
mined upon.  Late  in  the  afternoon,  he  hurled  the 
whole  of  Bragg's  force  upon  the  left  of  Grant's  line 
with  an  impetuosity  which  must  have  achieved  suc- 
cess had  the  tremendous  assault  been  made  an  hour 
earlier.  But  fortunately  for  the  Federals  General 
Buell  had  come  up  with  a  part  of  his  army.  He 
quickly  threw  such  regiments  as  he  had  with  him  into 
action  at  the  point  of  danger,  and  the  danger  was 
really  extreme.  It  was  only  necessary  for  the  Con- 
federates to  push  Grant's  left  wing  back  for  about 
two  hundred  yards  farther  than  it  had  been  pushed 
already  in  order  to  seize  upon  the  landing  and  com- 
pletely cut  Grant  off  from  his  gunboats  and  trans- 

1-21 


322         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

ports  acting  as  ferry-boats,  and  from  all  hope  of 
further  reinforcement. 

In  that  case  Grant's  problem  would  have  been  to 
save  his  shattered  army  from  complete  overthrow, 
with  surrender  as  the  well-nigh  inevitable  result. 
There  is  little  doubt  that  the  left  wing  must  have 
given  way  before  Bragg's  assault,  as  the  Confeder- 
ates expected  it  to  do,  but  for  the  reinforcement  which 
Buell  sent  into  action  at  the  critical  moment.  This 
reinforcement  saved  the  left  wing  from  the  destruc- 
tion intended  for  it. 

This  statement  is  made  upon  the  very  careful  and 
trustworthy  authority  of  General  Van  Home,  writ- 
ing under  direct  inspiration  of  General  Thomas.  In 
his  "Memoirs"  General  Grant  repudiates  the  claim 
of  Buell's  having  rendered  important  assistance  at 
that  time  and  insists  that  he  rendered  him  no  help 
of  any  consequence  on  the  first  day  of  the  battle. 
But  the  memoirs  were  written  from  the  memory  of  a 
very  ill  man  many  years  after  the  event,  and  may 
therefore  be  erroneous.  At  any  rate  General  Van 
Home's  account  of  what  happened,  supported  as  it 
is  by  copies  of  all  the  orders  given,  seems  the  more 
trustworthy  authority  on  the  point  at  issue. 

Night  was  now  near  at  hand.  During  a  long  day 
of  continuous  and  desperate  fighting  Grant  had  been 
slowly  beaten  back  to  the  neighborhood  of  the  river 
bank.  There  he  stood  at  bay  with  all  his  artillery  and 
all  his  infantry  massed  in  a  commanding  position, 
shattered  and  broken,  and  standing  in  desperate  de- 
fense of  a  point  from  which  he  could  retreat  no 
farther  without  retreating  into  the  river. 


SUloh  323 

Across  his  front  lay  a  deep  ravine.  This  would 
have  been  difficult  for  his  enemy  to  cross  under  the 
best  of  conditions.  It  was  rendered  the  more  difficult 
by  the  fact  that  it  was  in  part  filled  with  back  water 
from  the  river.  Still  more  important  was  the  fact 
that  it  was  completely  commanded  by  a  plunging  fire 
from  the  Federal  artillery  which  in  spite  of  defeat 
stood  resolutely  to  its  guns. 

Nevertheless  the  passage  of  that  ravine  was  not 
quite  impossible  to  a  determined  foe;  more  difficult 
tasks  have  been  accomplished  by  generals  of  desperate 
courage  commanding  such  an  army  as  that  under 
Beauregard  had  proved  itself  to  be  during  that  un- 
flinching day  of  slaughter. 

It  was  a  critical  moment  of  the  war — ^we  may 
almost  say  it  was  the  critical  moment  of  the  war. 
If  Beauregard  could  have  forced  that  ravine  he  must 
have  driven  his  adversary  into  the  river  or  compelled 
the  surrender  of  the  Federal  army  with  its  complete 
destruction  as  the  only  alternative.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  he  failed  to  force  the  ravine  that  night  it 
would  be  forever  too  late.  For  Buell's  whole  army 
was  now  within  call  and  it  was  certain  that  on  the 
following  day,  if  Grant  were  not  now  destroyed,  there 
would  be  a  Federal  force  on  the  Confederate  side  of 
the  river  with  which  Beauregard  could  not  reason- 
ably hope  to  cope  successfully. 

It  would  perhaps  be  unjust  to  say  that  at  this  su- 
preme crisis  Beauregard  faltered  and  failed.  The 
peril  of  the  attempt  was  so  great  and  the  certainty  of 
slaughter  so  appalling  that  the  very  stoutest  heart 
might  well  have  shrunk  from  the  desperate  hazard. 


324         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

Beauregard  himself  has  told  us  in  his  official  re- 
ports, and  in  Colonel  Roman's  inspired  book,  that  he 
was  unwilling  to  order  a  movement  so  desperate  in 
its  chances  and  so  certain  to  involve  a  slaughter  of 
brave  men  greater  than  any  that  has  been  anywhere 
recorded  in  the  annals  of  modern  war.  He  was  satis- 
fied with  the  day's  work  done  and  confident  of  com- 
plete victory  on  the  morrow.  So  sure  was  he  of  this 
that  he  sent  dispatches  to  Richmond  that  night  an- 
nouncing a  victory  of  stupendous  proportions  and 
painting  it  in  colors  so  glowing  that  President  Davis 
was  moved  to  send  a  congratulatory  message  to  the 
Congress,  and  that  body  passed  resolutions  of  the 
most  enthusiastic  kind. 

During  that  night  Buell's  army,  itself  outnumber- 
ing what  remained  of  Beauregard's,  was  hurrying  to 
reinforce  Grant  who  planned  to  renew  the  conflict  at 
dawn  with  every  prospect  of  reversing  the  first  day's 
results  and  wresting  victory  from  what  had  been  so 
nearly  a  complete  and  disastrous  defeat. 

Early  on  the  morning  of  the  seventh  of  April 
Grant,  reinforced  by  Buell's  men  and  having  now  an 
overmastering  superiority  of  numbers,  took  the  of- 
fensive and  assailed  Beauregard's  weakened  army 
with  a  determination  which  under  the  circumstances 
could  mean  nothing  less  than  victory. 

But  Beauregard  was  an  obstinate  fighter  and  a 
skilful  one  and  his  men  were  Americans  of  tHe  same 
race  and  lineage  and  traditions  as  those  tHey  were 
meeting  in  battle.  There  was  terrible  fighting,  there- 
fore, on  that  second  day,  and  it  was  only  after  a  very 
desperate  and  a  very  bloody  struggle,  Hours  long  in 


Shiloh  325 

duration,  that  Grant  regained  tlie  ground  lost  on  the 
day  before. 

But  Beauregard's  struggle  on  that  second  day  was 
rendered  hopeless  from  the  outset  by  irresistible  odds 
of  numbers,  and  after  a  heroic  resistance  he  withdrew 
his  army  and  retired  in  good  order  and  unmolested 
to  his  strongly  fortified  position  at  Corinth. 

Thus  ended  one  of  the  great  and  decisive  battles 
of  the  war.  The  Federals  had  lost  13,047  men — 
killed,  wounded  and  prisoners.  The  Confederate  loss 
was  officially  reported  at  10,699  men.  They  had 
captured  the  whole  of  Prentiss's  division,  2,200  strong. 

But  the  respective  losses  did  not  accurately  measure 
the  importance  of  the  contest.  The  battle  left 
the  Confederates  baffled  in  their  attempt  to  overthrow 
Grant,  but  not  less  determined  than  ever  to  fight  the 
matter  out  to  that  conclusion  which  they  religiously 
believed  to  be  their  due  of  righteousness.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  left  the  Federal  army  in  overmastering 
force  on  the  Confederate  side  of  a  river  which  con- 
stituted the  last  serious  natural  obstacle  to  Grant's 
purposed  march  to  the  gulf. 

But  Grant  was  again  immediately  superseded  in 
the  chief  command  and  forbidden  to  press  the  Con- 
federates with  that  tireless  and  ceaseless  activity 
which  was  the  dominant  characteristic  of  his  military 
methods.  He  had  now  an  army  of  about  120,000 
men.  In  front  of  him  lay  the  enemy  upon  a  weakly 
defensive  line  with  an  army  reduced  by  battle  losses 
to  less  than  40,000  effectives.  It  was  obviously 
Grant's  greatest  opportunity,  but  he  was  not  per- 
mitted to  seize  it  and  turn  it  to  account.     For  no 


326         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

sooner  was  the  battle  completely  won  than  General 
Halleek  hurried  down  from  St.  Louis  and  himself 
assumed  command. 

His  orders  were  paralyzing.  Instead  of  pushing 
forward  with  his  force,  that  outnumbered  the  Con- 
federates by  about  three  to  one,  and  quickly  making 
an  end  of  their  resistance,  he  fortified  and  proceeded 
to  busy  himself  with  the  petty  and  nagging  criticism 
of  battle  reports  while  the  Confederates  were  doing 
all  that  remained  possible  to  them  to  gather  recruits, 
to  strengthen  their  position  at  Corinth  and  to  prepare 
means  of  resistance  farther  South. 

When  we  shall  come  to  consider  in  a  future  chap- 
ter, what  else  had  happened,  we  shall  see  clearly  that 
by  his  victory  on  the  second  day  of  the  Shiloh  battle, 
taken  in  connection  with  other  occurrences.  General 
Grant  had  made  easily  possible  the  immediate  and 
complete  conquest  of  the  entire  Mississippi  Valley. 
It  only  required  an  immediate  and  determined  ad- 
vance such  as  General  Grant  naturally  and  eagerly 
desired  to  make,  in  order  to  complete  that  work  at 
once.  He  says  in  his  "Memoirs"  that  two  days  would 
have  been  ample  for  the  conquest  of  Corinth.  But 
General  Grant  was  not  in  control  of  operations  in  the 
western  department.  General  Halleek  was.  Gen- 
eral Grant  was  no  longer  even  in  command  of  the 
army  with  which  he  had  driven  General  Beauregard 
back  to  Corinth.  General  Halleek  was,  and  instead 
of  pressing  forward  at  once  as  Grant  desired  to  do 
and  driving  Beauregard  still  farther  south  while  cap- 
turing all  his  stores  or  compelling  him  to  destroy 
them,  Halleek  forbade  all  this  and  with  three  men  to 


ShUoh  327 

Beauregard's  one,  and  with  thrice  or  four  times  his 
resources  in  artillery,  ammunition  and  everything 
else,  he  fortified  at  Shiloh  and  began  a  slowly  sci- 
entific approach  to  works  that  Grant,  in  coHmiand 
of  that  army,  would  have  run  over  as  a  schoolboy 
tramples  down  a  pathway  through  a  clover  field. 
Halleck  did  not  even  begin  this  "scientific"  advance 
against  Corinth  until  the  thirtieth  of  April — more 
than  three  weeks  after  the  battle  at  Shiloh  had 
opened  the  way.  It  took  him,  by  his  slow  methods, 
a  full  month  more  to  reach  Corinth — ^less  than 
twenty  miles  away — and  when  he  got  there  at  last 
he  found  the  place  already  evacuated,  the  Confeder- 
ates having  made  good  use  of  the  seven  or  eight 
weeks'  time  which  his  dilatoriness  had  thus  allowed 
them  in  removing  their  guns,  ammunition  and  stores 
to  newly  fortified  positions  farther  south. 

But  Grant's  achievement  at  Shiloh  was  too  great 
to  be  ignored.  Again,  as  after  the  capture  of  Forts 
Henry  and  Donelson,  the  land  was  resounding  with 
the  praises  of  this  Galena  clerk  Ulysses  S.  Grant, 
and  nobody  outside  the  war  department  at  Washing- 
ton was  even  thinking  of  his  superior  ofiicer.  General 
Halleck. 

But  in  order  clearly  to  understand  what  and  how 
much  all  this  meant,  it  is  necessary  in  another  chapter 
to  recount  what  else  had  happened  of  a  nature  cal- 
culated to  contribute  to  the  recovery  of  the  Mississippi 
river  and  the  Mississippi  Valley,  and  to  the  severance 
of  the  Confederacy  in  twain. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

New  Madrid  and  Island  Number  10 

,  While  the  battle  of  ShiloK  was  in  progress  another 
strategically  important  struggle  was  fought  out. 

By  way  of  defending  the  Mississippi  and  holding 
it  within  Confederate  control  the  Southern  generals 
had  strongly  fortified  New  Madrid  Bend  and  Island 
Number  10. 

Let  us  explain.  The  Mississippi  river  is  exceed- 
ingly tortuous  in  its  course.  Some  miles  above  New 
Madrid  in  Missouri,  it  suddenly  turns  northwardly 
and  makes  a  great  bend.  At  or  near  the  northerly 
curve  of  that  bend  lies  the  village  of  New  Madrid, 
Missouri.  There  the  Confederates  had  fortified 
themselves  and  there  General  Pope  with  his  army  in 
Missouri  was  threatening  them. 

In  the  course  of  that  vast  bend  lay  Island  Number 
10,  and  here  the  Confederates  had  still  more  deter- 
minedly fortified  themselves  with  a  view  of  holding 
the  great  river.  They  had  a  strong  force  at  Fort 
Pillow,  on  the  Tennessee  bank  farther  down  the 
stream.  They  held  Memphis  on  the  Chickasaw  bluffs 
240  miles  below  Cairo.  They  had  possession  of  Vicks- 
burg  and  Port  Hudson,  but  those  positions  had  not 
yet  been  made  strongholds  by  elaborate  fortifications. 
They  still  held  New  Orleans  and  the  defenses  below 
that  city,  though  they  were  destined  soon  to  lose  them. 

328 


New  Madrid  and  Island  Number  10      329 

Thus  they  commanded  the  river  and  made  of  it  a 
Confederate  highway.  It  was  the  obvious  policy  of 
the  Confederates  to  retain  possession  of  that  great 
river.  It  was  the  equally  obvious  policy  of  their  ad- 
versaries to  conquer  control  of  it. 

When  Beauregard  wisely,  and  indeed  under  stra- 
tegic compulsion,  withdrew  the  forces  from  Colum- 
bus, Kentucky,  he  sent  some  of  the  troops  constituting 
the  garrison  and  most  of  the  guns  that  bristled  from 
the  useless  fortifications  of  that  town  to  New  Madrid 
and  Island  Number  10,  where  they  were  needed. 

Early  in  March  General  Pope  moved  down  the 
Mississippi  on  its  western  side,  and  began  operations 
for  the  reduction  of  New  Madrid.  When  he  had  got 
his  siege  guns  into  position  and  opened  a  serious  bom- 
bardment, the  works  there  were  quickly  abandoned. 

Then  began  the  assault  upon  Island  Number  10, 
the  one  great  northern  stronghold  of  the  Confeder- 
ates in  the  Mississippi  river,  designed  to  hold  that 
great  waterway  and  forbid  to  the  Federals  its  use  as  a 
thoroughfare  into  the  heart  of  the  South. 

The  Federal  army  cut  a  canal  across  the  peninsula 
formed  by  the  great  bend  in  the  river.  All  the  naval 
force  that  the  Federals  could  command  in  those 
waters  was  brought  to  bear  not  only  for  the  reduc- 
tion of  the  forts  there  but  still  more  for  the  beating 
off  of  the  Confederate  gunboats  under  Commodore 
Hollins.  On  the  other  hand  Commodore  Foote  ran 
the  canal  with  his  Federal  gunboats  and  established 
himself  in  a  commanding  position  in  reverse  of  the 
forts  while  Pope  crossed  the  stream  and  assailed  the 
enemy  in  front  with  all  his  land  forces. 


330  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

The  situation  of  the  Confederates  was  a  hopeless 
one  and  after  an  effort  to  escape  they  surrendered 
nearly  7,000  men  and  more  than  150  guns,  most  of 
them  of  large  caliber  and  formidable  destructive 
force. 

This  occurred  on  the  second  day  of  the  Shiloh 
battle,  April  7,  1862,  on  which  day,  after  a  heroic 
effort  to  breast  Grant's  overwhelming  numbers, 
Beauregard  withdrew  from  Shiloh  to  Corinth.  This 
capture  of  Island  Number  10  opened  the  Mississippi 
to  Memphis,  except  for  the  single  and,  as  it  after- 
wards proved  to  be,  the  utterly  ineffective  position  at 
Fort  Pillow. 

General  Halleck  was  fully  informed  of  all  that 
had  happened.  He  knew  that  Pope's  way  was  open 
down  the  Mississippi  to  Memphis,  and  that  Memphis, 
scarcely  at  all  defended,  was  within  his  easy  grasp. 
He  knew  of  course  that  Memphis  was  the  westerly 
end  of  the  new  defensive  line  of  the  Confederates, 
and  that  its  capture  must  compel  them  still  further  to 
retire  toward  the  south,  even  should  he  fail  or  neglect 
to  drive  them  from  the  Memphis  and  Charleston  rail- 
road line  at  Corinth,  as  he  easily  might  have  done  with 
his  utterly  overwhelming  force,  and  as  Grant  would 
undoubtedly  have  done  if  that  vigorously  aggressive 
general  had  been  left  in  control  of  that  splendidly 
equipped  army.  But  Halleck  sat  still  and  pottered 
over  "reports"  that  annoyingly  paid  no  tribute  to  his 
genius  and  suggested  no  credit  to  him  for  the  victory 
that  had  been  won. 

Meanwhile  Grant  was  losing  time.  The  Confed- 
erates,  foreseeing  the  inevitable  loss  of  Memphis, 


New  Madrid  and  Island  Number  10       331 

which  happened  on  the  sixth  of  June,  nearly  two 
months  after  energy  would  easily  have  compelled  it, 
were  busily  fortifying  all  defensible  positions  on  the 
river  below,  especially  at  Vicksburg  and  Port  Hud- 
son, and  thus  making  necessary  one  of  the  most 
strenuous  and  one  of  the  bloodiest  campaigns  of  the 
war,  where  scarcely  any  campaign  at  all  would  have 
been  necessary  but  for  the  fact  that  a  martinet  offi- 
cer, much  too  "scientific"  and  too  "regular"  for  the 
practical  purposes  of  war,  was  in  authority  over  a 
man  who  knew  not  only  how  to  plan  campaigns  but 
how  to  conduct  them  quickly  to  a  successful  con- 
elusion. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

Farragut  at  New  Orleans 

There  was  still  another  man  of  splendid  genius  and 
capacity  who  about  this  time  came  to  the  front  as  a 
winner  of  victories  for  the  Federal  arms,  and  above 
all,  as  a  man  like  Grant,  who  knew  how  to  do  things 
when  officialism  permitted  him  to  act.  Like  Grant 
on  the  one  side,  and  Lee  on  the  other,  Farragut  was 
at  first  treated  as  a  negligible  factor  in  the  war. 

David  Glasgow  Farragut  was  a  man  of  Southern 
birth  who  had  been  twice  married  in  Virginia,  and  all 
of  whose  kindred  and  connections  and  instinctive 
sympathies  were  Southern.  He  so  far  sympathized 
with  the  South  indeed  that  he  openly  declared  his 
purpose  to  go  with  the  Confederacy  if  by  any  means 
the  division  of  the  country  could  be  peacefully  ar- 
ranged and  accomplished.  But,  living  as  he  did  at 
the  outbreak  of  the  war  in  a  strongly  secessionist  Vir- 
ginia town,  he  frankly  declared  his  lack  of  faith  in  the 
peaceful  accomplishment  of  secession,  and  his  fixed 
purpose  in  the  event  of  war  to  cast  in  his  lot  with  the 
cause  of  the  nation,  which,  all  his  long  life — for  he 
was  sixty  years  old — he  had  served,  and  from  which  all 
his  honors  had  come.  This  declaration  quickly  made 
Norfolk,  in  which  city  he  was  living,  "too  hot"  for  him 
in  its  popular  sentiment,  and  accordingly  he  removed 
to  the  North  to  await  events. 


Farragut  at  New  Orleans  333 

At  that  time  Farragut  was  a  captain  in  the  navy. 
He  was  by  all  odds  the  officer  in  that  service  most 
distinguished  for  brilliant,  daring  and  competent- 
ly eiFective  performance.  He  had  entered  the  navy 
"through  a  port  hole,"  as  he  said,  at  nine  years  of 
age.  He  had  served  with  such  distinction  under 
Commodore  Porter,  that  at  twelve  years  of  age  he 
had  been  intrusted  by  the  great  seaman  with  the  com- 
mand of  a  richly  laden  prize  ship,  navigating  her  for 
fifteen  hundred  miles  into  the  harbor  of  Valparaiso, 
and  there  arranging  for  her  condemnation.  He  had, 
while  yet  a  mere  boy,  distinguished  himself  for  cour- 
age in  a  severely-contested  sea  fight. 

In  brief,  this  Captain  Farragut  was  obviously,  and 
unquestionably,  the  very  fittest  man  to  undertake  any 
difficult  naval  expedition  that  the  Washington  gov- 
ernment might  plan  or  contemplate. 

But  he  had  the  taint  of  Southern  birth  and  con- 
nections, and  it  was  nearly  a  year  after  he  offered 
himself  unreservedly  for  any  service  that  might  be 
required  of  him  when  the  politicians  who  controlled 
the  Navy  Department  at  Washington  ventured  to 
make  use  of  his  abilities. 

And  when  at  last  these  people  in  the  Navy  Depart- 
ment reconciled  themselves  to  the  thought  of  giving 
an  important  command  to  this  brilliantly  distinguished 
naval  officer,  who  shared  with  Winfield  Scott  and 
George  H.  Thomas  the  suspicious  disadvantage  of 
Southern  birth  and  connections,  they  did  it  in  a  way 
insultingly  suggestive  of  their  doubt  as  to  his  loyalty 
or  courage  or  something  else  essential. 

New  Orleans  was  in  every  way — in  population,  ex- 


334  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

ports,  imports,  and  everything  else — ^the  chief  city  of 
the  Southern  Confederacy.  Moreover  its  strategic 
position  was  one  which  commanded  a  vast  system  of 
inland  waterways  constituting  the  only  effective  link 
between  the  Confederate  country  west  of  the  Missis- 
sippi and  that  part  of  the  Confederacy  that  lay  east 
of  the  great  river. 

The  city  lies  about  a  hundred  miles,  to  use  round 
figures,  above  the  multitudinous  mouths  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi. It  lies  less  than  half  a  dozen  miles  west  of 
the  so-called  Lake  Pontchartrain,  which  is  an  inlet 
from  the  gulf,  with  two  other  bodies  of  water,  Mis- 
sissippi Sound  and  Lake  Borgne,  lying  between. 

But  the  passes  into  Lake  Borgne  and  from  that 
body  of  water  into  Lake  Pontchartrain,  are  shallow 
and  difficult,  as  the  British  discovered  in  1814  in  their 
attempt  to  approach  New  Orleans  by  the  "back  door," 
as  it  were. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Mississippi  has  five  prin- 
cipal mouths,  with  some  others  that  carry  less  water. 
Thus  it  was,  or  seemed  to  be,  impossible  for  any  Fed- 
eral fleet  to  blockade  the  entrances  to  that  stream  and 
cut  off  commerce  between  New  Orleans  and  the  outer 
world. 

But  above  and  beyond  all  these  considerations,  was 
the  desire  of  the  Federal  authorities  to  conquer  con- 
trol of  the  Mississippi  itself  throughout  its  entire 
length.  That  would  be  not  only  to  split  the  Confed- 
eracy into  halves,  cutting  off  a  large  part  of  its  food 
resources,  but  also  to  make  of  the  great  river  a  con- 
venient highway  for  the  transportation  of  Federal 
food  supplies,  troops,  ammunition  and  all  else  that 


Farragut  at  New  Orleans  335 

IS  needful  in  war,  to  such  points  as  might  have  need 
of  them. 

Thus  the  reduction  of  the  defenses  of  New  Orleans, 
and  the  conquest  of  that  city  became  a  matter  of  su- 
preme strategic  importance.  To  this  task  Farragut 
was  assigned  with  a  fleet  that,  in  our  time,  could  not 
possibly  force  its  way  past  a  single  well-defended 
fort,  or  successfully  meet  an  adversary  afloat.  He 
had  in  his  fleet,  first  of  all — in  Navy  Department  es- 
timation— twenty-one  schooners,  each  carrying  a  mor- 
tar intended  to  throw  shells  high  in  air  and  drop  them 
into  the  Confederate  defensive  works.  These  proved 
to  be  utterly  useless,  as  Farragut  had  from  the  be- 
ginning believed  that  they  would  be.  He  had  besides, 
six  sloops  of  war,  sixteen  gunboats,  and  eight  other 
ships.  His  flagship,  the  Hartford^  was  a  wooden  ves- 
sel, carrying  twenty-two  Dahlgren  nine-inch  guns  be- 
sides howitzers  in  the  tops.  The  others  were  similarly 
armed.  All  were  under-powered,  and  could  make 
only  eight  knots  an  hour  where  there  was  no  current. 
In  such  a  stream  as  the  Mississippi  four  knots  consti- 
tuted the  limit  of  their  performance.  There  were 
transports  also,  carrying  an  army  of  about  15,000 
men  under  command  of  General  Benjamin  F.  Butler. 
This  force  was  intended  to  occupy  the  city  after 
Farragut  should  have  captured  it,  but  until  he  should 
do  so  it  was  only  an  incumbrance  to  his  expedition. 
He  got  rid  of  it  for  a  time  by  landing  the  troops  on 
one  of  the  islands  that  separate  Mississippi  Sound 
from  the  gulf,  and  leaving  them  there  until  such 
time  as  he  should  have  need  of  them. 

The  civilians  in  control  of  the  Navy  Department 


336         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

had  not  in  any  adequate  way  consulted  Farragut  as 
to  the  composition  or  the  armament  of  the  fleet  with 
which  he  was  required  to  accomphsh  a  task  that  was 
next  to  impossible.  In  making  up  the  fleet  they  had 
accepted  the  suggestions  of  his  subordinate,  Com- 
mander David  D.  Porter,  and  in  obedience  to  them 
had  created  the  flotilla  largely  out  of  mortar  schoon- 
ers which  Farragut  regarded  as  practically  useless, 
and  which  in  the  event  proved  to  be  altogether  so. 
That  is  to  say,  after  the  manner  of  that  time  they  had 
consulted  with  the  less  experienced  inferior  instead 
of  asking  the  advice  of  the  thoroughly  experienced 
superior.  They  had  been  guided  by  an  officer  who  was 
not  to  command  the  expedition,  instead  of  asking  the 
advice  of  the  officer  who  was  to  lead  it.  But  Farragut 
was  so  anxious  to  proceed  upon  the  country's  business 
and  in  some  way  to  serve  it  that  he  promptly  ac- 
cepted the  conmiand  off*ered  to  him  and  expressed 
himself  as  "satisfied"  with  the  ship  force  provided  for 
him  to  command. 

Expert  as  he  was  in  all  that  pertained  to  Mexican 
Gulf  geography  and  hydrography,  he  perfectly  knew 
that  one  of  the  principal  ships  assigned  to  him  could 
in  no  wise  be  dragged  into  the  Mississippi  because  of 
her  excessive  draught  of  water.  Expert  as  he  was  in 
all  that  pertained  to  naval  warfare,  he  foresaw  that 
the  mortar  fleet  assigned  to  him  could  accomplish 
nothing,  and  that  its  presence  in  his  squadron  could 
be  nothing  other  than  an  embarrassment.  In  the 
same  way  he  saw  clearly  that  General  Butler's  land 
force,  carried  upon  transports,  could  not  fail  to  be  a 
weak  spot  in  his  armor.     Yet  he  uncomplainingly 


Farragut  at  New  Orleans  337 

accepted    the    conditions   and   set    about   the    duty 
assigned  him. 

It  was  with  this  utterly  inadequate  and  motley 
crew  of  serviceable  and  unserviceable  and  positively 
detrimental  ships  that  Farragut  was  ordered  to  re- 
duce the  defenses  of  New  Orleans,  overthrow  its  naval 
resistance  and  conquer  the  city. 

Farragut  was  fully  aware  of  the  utter  inadequacy 
of  the  means  given  to  him.  He  perfectly  knew  that 
the  eiFective  vessels  at  his  disposal  were  far  fewer  and 
far  less  formidable  than  the  task  set  him  required. 
But  it  was  his  habit  to  undertake  desperate  enterprises 
with  inadequate  means,  and  he  had  waited  a  long  time 
for  any  opportunity,  however  meager,  to  serve  his 
country.  So,  in  the  great  generosity  of  his  mind,  he 
expressed  to  the  Navy  Department  his  willingness  to 
undertake  the  desperate  enterprise  with  the  obviously 
insufficient,  and  in  part  the  absurdly  worthless,  force 
assigned  to  him  to  command. 

Then  came  his  orders  from  the  civilians,  who,  with- 
out experience  or  knowledge,  or  skill,  or  any  other 
recognizable  qualification  for  command,  controlled 
the  Navy  Department.  These  orders  were  insulting 
in  their  tone  and  manner.  It  was  quite  a  matter  of, 
course  that  so  old,  so  tried,  so  skilful  an  officer  as 
David  Glasgow  Farragut  would  do  the  very  best  that 
was  possible  with  the  means  placed  at  his  command. 
Yet  the  Navy  Department  people  suggested  doubt 
of  this  by  the  very  terms  of  the  orders  they  gave 
him. 

These  orders  instructed  him  to  reduce  the  defenses 
of  the  Mississippi  and  take  possession  of  New  Or- 

1-29 


338         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

leans.  They  took  no  account  of  difficulties.  They 
reckoned  not  upon  things  in  the  way.  They  merely 
ordered  a  thing  done  as  one  might  order  a  carpet 
cleaned  or  a  load  of  wood  sawed  into  stove  lengths. 
Then  those  orders  went  on  to  say:  "As  you  have  ex- 
pressed yourself  perfectly  satisfied  with  the  force 
given  to  you,  and  as  many  more  powerful  vessels  will 
be  added  before  you  can  commence  operations,  the 
department  and  the  country  require  of  you  success/' 

Could  there  have  been  anything  more  impertinent 
than  this,  from  a  purely  civilian  department  to  an 
officer  who  for  half  a  century  had  been  accustomed  to 
make  success  the  keynote  of  all  his  reports  of  action? 
Could  there  have  been  anything  more  insolent  or  more 
insulting  than  the  suggestion  that  David  Glasgow 
Farragut  might  do  less  than  lay  within  his  power 
to  do  toward  the  accomplishment  of  any  purpose  to 
which  he  might  be  commissioned?  Could  anything  be 
more  insolent  than  the  reminder  that  in  consenting  to 
undertake  the  expedition  he  had  declined  to  criticise 
the  composition  of  the  fleet  concerning  which  he  had 
not  been  consulted  and  had  expressed  himself  as  "sat- 
isfied" to  undertake  the  expedition  with  the  means 
provided  to  his  hand? 

Now  let  us  consider  the  terms  and  conditions  of 
Farragut's  problem,  the  nature  of  the  work  he  had  to 
do,  the  tools  he  had  to  do  it  with,  and  the  difficulties 
he  must  overcome  in  order  to  achieve  the  success  "re- 
quired" of  him. 

The  Mississippi  river  is  the  greatest  waterway  in 
the  world.  It  is  the  middle  thread  of  a  system  em- 
bracing more  than  sixteen  thousand  miles  of  prac- 


Farragut  at  New  Orleans  339 

tically  navigable  rivers,  bayous  and  creeks.  In  its 
ramifications  it  drains  no  less  than  twenty-eight  states 
of  the  Union.  In  its  course  it  flows  from  the  Rocky 
Mountains  on  the  one  side,  the  Alleghenies  on  the 
other,  and  the  Cumberland,  the  Ozark,  and  the  Mis- 
souri ranges,  into  a  single  great  stream. 

New  Orleans  lies  in  a  bend  of  that  tortuous  stream 
within  about  one  hundred  miles  from  its  mouths. 

But  this  greatest  of  rivers,  dividing  the  eastern 
from  the  western  United  States,  and,  in  its  great 
tributaries  dividing  the  north  from  the  south,  instead 
of  broadening  in  its  course  toward  the  sea  after  the 
usual  manner  of  rivers,  narrows  itself  below  New 
Orleans  to  a  width  of  half  a  mile  or  less. 

Here  the  Confederates  had  established  their  de- 
fenses, or  more  properly  speaking,  here  they  had 
made  themselves  masters  of  defenses  created  by  the 
National  Government  before  a  thought  of  civil  war 
had  arisen  in  any  mind. 

So  far  as  the  "back  door"  approach  was  concerned — 
the  approach  by  way  of  Lake  Borgne  and  the  Rigo- 
lets  and  Lake  Pontchartrain — New  Orleans  was  ade- 
quately defended  by  the  shallowness  of  the  water  at 
critical  points.  Unless  a  special  fleet  of  shallow- 
draught  gunboats  should  be  built  at  Ship  Island  or 
elsewhere  there  was  no  possibility  of  reaching  the 
chief  city  of  the  Confederacy  by  that  route.  Farra- 
gut's  only  hope  lay,  therefore,  in  ascending  the 
Mississippi  river. 

His  first  obstacle  was  encountered  in  the  mouth  of 
the  Mississippi  itself.  The  great  river  carries  with  it 
to  the  sea  a  limitless  quantity  of  mud  which  it  de- 


340         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

posits  in  whatever  spot  there  may  be  ready  to  receive 
it.  It  is  credited  by  the  geologists  with  having  created 
in  this  way  all  the  low-lying  lands  from  Cairo  to  the 
gulf,  a  distance  of  nearly  twelve  hundred  miles  by 
the  river's  course.  At  the  several  mouths  of  the 
stream  it  is  still  depositing  mud  and  still  pushing  the 
land  out  into  the  gulf.  Very  naturally  its  mud  de- 
posits create  bars  at  the  several  mouths.  Long  after 
the  war  was  over.  Captain  Eads  with  his  jetties  un- 
dertook to  compel  the  current  to  wash  out  channels 
in  the  principal  mouths  and  thus  to  render  easy  the 
approach  of  ships  to  New  Orleans.  But  nothing  of 
that  kind  had  been  done  in  the  early  sixties,  and  the 
Federal  fleet  that  was  charged  with  the  duty  of  re- 
ducing the  forts  and  capturing  the  city  must  first 
force  its  way  through  shifting  mud  banks  in  order  to 
get  into  the  river.  The  useless  mortar  schooners  en- 
tered easily  by  the  Pass  a  TOutre,  but  the  vessels  that 
were  to  do  the  effective  fighting  had  far  greater  diffi- 
culty. It  required  three  weeks  of  strenuous  night 
and  day  exertion  to  force  them  through  the  South- 
west Pass — the  principal  mouth  of  the  river — and 
even  then  one  of  them,  the  Colorado,  had  to  be  left 
outside. 

Having  thus  passed  the  first  and  purely  natural 
defense  of  New  Orleans,  Farragut  had  next  to  en- 
counter the  artificial  defenses  of  the  river  itself. 
These  consisted  of  two  forts  at  the  narrowest  part  of 
the  stream,  together  with  some  adjunctive  defenses 
presently  to  be  mentioned. 

These  forts  were  two  very  imperfectly  armed 
works — Fort  St.  Philip  on  the  eastern  bank,  and  Fort 


Farragut  at  New  Orleans  341 

Jackson  on  the  western.  They  mounted  about  109 
effective  guns,  some  of  them  of  obsolete  pattern,  only 
a  few  of  which — estimated  at  fourteen — were  pro- 
tected by  casemates.  Captain  Mahan,  in  his  "Life  of 
Farragut,"  tells  us  that  these  forts  had  been  largely 
stripped  of  their  armament,  and  were  very  imper- 
fectly equipped  for  the  defensive  work  required  of 
them. 

In  the  river  above  the  forts  lay  a  Confederate  war 
fleet  of  fifteen  vessels,  including  an  iron-clad  ram 
and  an  iron-clad  floating  battery,  both  carrying  heavy 
guns.  This  fleet  had  been  stupidly  weakened  by  the 
withdrawal  of  Hollins's  gunboats  for  inconsequent 
service  at  Memphis. 

Below  the  forts  was  a  great  chain  barrier  stretched 
across  the  river  and  supported  by  hulks  anchored  in 
the  stream  for  that  purpose.  For  the  protection  of 
this  barrier  the  shores  were  lined  with  Confederate 
sharpshooters — riflemen  accustomed  to  hit  whatever 
they  might  shoot  at. 

Having  got  his  fleet  into  the  river  after  weeks  of 
toil — leaving  one  very  important  vessel  behind — ^it 
was  Farragut's  task  to  assail  and  overcome  these  de- 
fenses and  force  his  way  through  a  strong  fleet,  up 
the  narrow  river  to  the  city  he  was  ordered  to  capture. 

Farragut,  as  has  been  said  already  and  as  he  had 
bluntly  told  the  Navy  Department,  had  no  confidence 
whatever  in  the  eff*ectiveness  of  the  mortar  fleet, 
which  was  in  charge  of  its  originator,  David  D.  Por- 
ter. He  would  have  preferred  to  leave  that  part  of 
his  squadron  behind  as  an  entirely  useless  and  embar- 
rassing incumbrance;  but  he  was  a  man  of  generous 


342         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

mind  and  never  arrogantly  opinionated.  So  he  gave 
Porter  the  fullest  possible  opportunity  to  demon- 
strate the  effectiveness  of  his  mortar  fleet. 

There  were  twenty-one  of  the  mortar  schooners, 
each  carrying  a  mortar  of  thirteen  inches  caliber, 
which  threw  shells  weighing  two  hundred  and  eighty- 
five  pounds  each.  These  shells  were  filled  with  such 
charges  of  gunpowder  as  made  them,  in  theory  at 
least,  terrible  engines  of  destruction  when  they  ex- 
ploded. It  was  Porter's  firm  conviction  that  by  their 
fire  alone  he  could  compel  the  Confederates  to  aban- 
don their  forts  and  leave  the  way  clear  for  the  fleet  to 
sail  on  up  the  river  with  only  the  Confederate  war 
vessels  to  contest  their  passage.  Farragut  did  not 
expect  any  such  result,  but  he  gave  Porter  every  op- 
portunity. 

Securely  anchored  in  a  position  of  Porter's  own 
selection,  the  mortar  schooners  opened  fire  on  the 
eighteenth  of  April.  For  six  consecutive  days  and 
nights  they  threw  their  fearful  missiles,  each  in  itself 
a  mine,  into  the  forts.'  They  threw  in  all  six  thousand 
of  these  shells,  weighing  in  the  aggregate  no  less  than 
eight  hundred  and  fifty-five  tons.  They  killed  or 
wounded  only  fifty  men — a  picket  guard  in  num- 
bers— or,  as  Dr.  Rossiter  Johnson  has  curiously  calcu- 
lated, they  killed  or  wounded  about  one  man  to  every 
sixteen  tons  of  iron  hurled  into  the  forts. 

This  was  at  the  rate  of  only  eight  casualties  a  day, 
a  bagatelle  in  war  and  very  naturally  a  bombardment 
so  slightly  effective  utterly  failed  to  render  the  forts 
untenable  or  to  drive  out  the  brave  men  who  were  set 
to  defend  them.    On  the  contrary  the  Confederate  fire 


Farragut  at  New  Orleans  343 

in  response  to  the  mortars  sank  one  of  the  schooners 
and  disabled  one  of  the  steamers. 

Thus  was  again  taught  the  familiar  lesson  of  war, 
that  the  terrific  is  not  necessarily  the  effective  fire  in 
battle. 

So  far  from  abandoning  their  forts  under  this  fear- 
ful rain  of  metal  and  explosives  the  Confederates 
were  busying  themselves  night  and  day  in  determined 
and  intelligently  directed  efforts  to  destroy  their  ad- 
versary's fleet.  They  sent  down  the  river  a  multitude 
of  blazing  fire-rafts,  and  it  required  not  only  all  of 
Farragut's  wonderful  foresight  and  ingenuity  but 
constant  and  very  earnest  exertions  on  the  part  of  his 
crews  to  ward  off  this  danger. 

At  last  the  mortar  experiment  was  done.  It  had 
utterly  failed  to  accomplish  its  intended  purpose  of 
reducing  the  forts  or  compelling  their  evacuation. 
Farragut  was  dealing  with  an  enemy  of  his  own  de- 
termined kind,  an  enemy  as  resolute,  as  daring,  and 
as  patiently  enduring  as  he  himself  was. 

He  decided  at  last  to  push  his  fleet  past  the  forts  at 
all  hazards,  and,  leaving  those  works  as  an  enemy  in 
his  rear,  to  try  conclusions  in  a  decisive  battle  with  the 
Confederate  fleet  that  lay  in  wait  for  him  in  the  river 
above.  It  was  a  dangerous  and  a  daring  thing  to  do. 
Indeed,  it  was  almost  desperately  daring.  But  Far- 
ragut's habit  of  mind  was  daring.  Moreover  his  or- 
ders on  this  occasion  offensively  and  insultingly 
"required"  success  at  his  hands.  It  was  his  fixed  pur- 
pose either  to  achieve  that  success  or  to  sink  beneath 
the  muddy  waters  of  the  Mississippi  in  a  determined 
effort  to  achieve  it. 


344         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

His  first  care  was  to  sever  the  chain  barrier  across 
the  river.  To  that  end  he  sent  a  force  up  the  stream 
which  gallantly  boarded  one  of  the  hulks,  cut  the 
chain,  and  rendered  that  defense  useless. 

On  the  morning  of  April  24,  at  3.30  o'clock,  the 
fighting  part  of  the  fleet  advanced  in  full  force,  en- 
gaging the  enemy  to  the  right  and  left,  but  mean- 
while pushing  its  way  up  the  river  without  waiting 
for  results  at  the  point  of  obstruction. 

The  forts  were  quickly  passed  and  then  ensued  one 
of  the  most  picturesque  water  battles  ever  fought. 
The  Confederates  knew  their  business  and  they  did 
it  with  a  skill  and  determination  which  excited  Farra- 
gut's  admiration,  as  he  was  afterwards  accustomed  to 
testify  in  glowing  words  of  recognition. 

Captain  Theodorus  Bailey,  with  eight  vessels,  was 
the  first  to  pass  the  forts.  He  immediately  became 
involved  in  a  desperate  encounter  with  the  Confeder- 
ate fleet.  His  flagship,  the  Cayuga,  was  engaged  at 
once  by  three  Confederate  vessels,  each  determinedly 
trying  to  board  and  capture  her;  for  this  was  a  battle 
of  giants  in  which  every  officer  and  every  man  on 
either  side  was  ready  for  any  conceivable  deed  of 
"derring-do,"  and  in  which  personal  courage  of  the 
most  dauntless  sort  was  the  one  military  equipment 
which  both  sides  possessed  in  absolutely  limitless 
supply. 

Bailey  destroyed  one  of  his  assailants  with  an 
eleven-inch  shell.  Has  the  reader  any  conception  of 
what  it  means  to  have  an  eleven-inch  shell  penetrate 
the  side  of  a  vessel  and  explode  within  its  wooden 
walls?    In  every  eleven-inch  shell  there  is  a  charge  of 


Farragut  at  New  Orleans  345 

gunpowder  of  positively  earthquake-producing  pro- 
portions, and  when  it  explodes  it  wrecks  everything 
within  hundreds  of  feet  of  it.  Exploding  within  a 
vessel  it  dismounts  guns,  kills  men,  rips  up  bulwarks 
and  bulkheads,  and  renders  the  ship  a  helpless  wreck, 
with  fire  everywhere  to  complete  the  destruction. 

That  is  what  happened  to  one  of  the  ships  that 
assailed  Captain  Bailey.  Another  was  driven  off, 
and  before  the  third  could  accomplish  its  purpose  the 
Oneida  and  the  Varuna  came  to  the  rescue.  The 
Oneida  rammed  one  of  the  Confederate  vessels,  cut- 
ting it  in  two.  The  Varuna  had  worse  fortune.  She 
was  successfully  rammed  by  the  Confederates,  and 
running  ashore,  sank  helplessly. 

The  Pensacola  sustained  a  loss  of  thirty-seven  men 
in  passing  the  forts,  a  fact  that  eloquently  testified  to 
the  vigor  that  abode  in  those  works  after  Porter's  six 
days'  hail  of  great  shells  into  their  precincts. 

The  Mississippi,  of  Farragut's  fleet,  was  rammed 
and  disabled  by  the  Confederate  iron-clad  Manassas. 
But,  by  way  of  revenge,  the  Mississippi's  guns  rid- 
dled the  ram  and  destroyed  it. 

In  the  meanwhile  the  Confederates  were  sending 
down  fire-rafts  in  great  numbers,  and  in  an  attempt 
to  avoid  contact  with  two  of  these  Farragut's  flagship, 
the  Hartford,  ran  aground  upon  a  mud  bank  and  for 
a  time  lay  helpless  in  an  exceedingly  perilous  position. 

If  the  reader  would  fully  understand  the  terror  of 
this  "river  fight"  he  should  remember  that  at  the 
point  where  it  occurred  the  Mississippi  is  only  about 
half  a  mile  wide.  Everything  done  at  all  in  such  a 
stream  must  be  done  at  close  quarters,  and  it  was  at 


346  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

the  very  closest  of  quarters  that  the  Northern  and 
Southern  Americans  who  contested  that  fight  met 
each  other  on  that  terrible  morning  of  April  24, 
1862.  The  men  who  fought  there  in  the  river  on  the 
one  side  or  upon  the  other,  are  mostly  dead  now ;  only 
a  few  of  them  survive  in  soldiers'  homes  or  sailors' 
snug  harbors.  Surely  we  can  do  no  better  in  this  new 
century  than  pay  all  possible  honor  to  the  valor  with 
which,  on  the  one  side  and  upon  the  other,  they  fought 
for  their  respective  causes  on  that  soft  spring  morn- 
ing in  the  early  sixties.  They  were  heroes  all,  and 
right  heroically  did  they  acquit  themselves  in  the 
brutal  and  bloody  work  they  were  set  to  do. 

The  net  result  of  the  contest  was  the  destruction  of 
the  Confederate  fleet.  With  that  out  of  the  way 
Farragut  pushed  on  to  New  Orleans  and  with  guns 
out  for  action,  demanded  the  city's  surrender. 

Only  one  issue  was  possible,  of  course.  The  city 
was  at  Farragut's  mercy.  He  could  easily  destroy 
it  should  it  resist.  It  only  remained  for  him  to 
hoist  the  National  flag  over  it  and  to  send  for  Gen- 
eral Butler's  land  force  to  occupy  and  possess  the 
chief  city  of  the  South,  which  he  did  on  the  first  of 
May. 

Butler's  rule  in  the  city,  where  the  white  population 
at  that  time  consisted  chiefly  of  women  and  children, 
was  harsh  and  even  brutal — so  harsh  and  so  brutal  in 
its  attitude  toward  women  as  to  offend  sentiment  both 
North  and  SDuth,  and  in  Europe. 

He  issued  one  order  which  could  not  have  come 
from  the  headquarters  of  any  man  of  soldierly  in- 
stincts or  gentle  associations.    By  way  of  resenting 


Farragut  at  New  Orleans  347 

the  attitude  and  conduct  of  women  toward  a  con- 
quering soldiery,  he  put  forth  a  decree  in  these  words : 

General  Orders  No.  28 

Headquarters,  Dept.  of  the  Gulf, 
New  Orleans,  May  15,  1862. 
As  the  officers  and  soldiers  of  the  United  States  have  been 
subject  to  repeated  insults  from  the  women   (calling  them- 
selves ladies )  of  New  Orleans  in  return  for  the  most  scrupulous 
non-interference  and  courtesy  on  our  part,  it  is  ordered  that 
hereafter  when  any  female  shall  by  word,  gesture  or  move- 
ment, insult  or  show  contempt  for  any  officer  or  soldier  of  the 
United  States,  she  shall  be  regarded  and  held  liable  to  be 
treated  as  a  woman  of  the  town  plying  her  avocation. 
By  order  of  Major-General  Butler. 

George  C.   Strong, 

Assistant  Adjutant   General  and 
Chief  of  Staff. 

It  needs  no  argument  and  no  exposition  to  show 
that  in  issuing  this  order  Benjamin  F.  Butler  delib- 
erately gave  license  and  authority  to  the  most  brutal 
impulses  of  the  most  degraded  men  under  his  com- 
mand,— authorizing  them  to  judge  for  themselves 
when  they  should  choose  to  think  themselves  insulted 
"by  word,  gesture,  or  movement,"  and  upon  every 
such  occasion,  without  further  inquiry,  and  upon  their 
own  initiative,  to  treat  every  woman  who  had  occasion 
to  venture  into  the  streets  as  "a  woman  of  the  town 
plying  her  avocation." 

With  the  cynicism  that  had  equipped  him  for  prac- 
tice in  the  criminal  courts  of  Boston,  Butler  after- 
wards explained  his  order  by  saying  that  the  only 
right  way  to  treat  "a  woman  of  the  town  plying  her 
avocation,"  is  to  pass  her  by  unnoticed.    But  he  per- 


348         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

f  ectly  knew  that  that  was  not  what  his  order  meant 
to  his  soldiery  or  what  he  meant  it  to  mean. 

The  rigor  of  Butler's  rule  in  New  Orleans  was  in 
some  other  respects  salutary.  He  wantonly  impris- 
oned many  citizens — ^men  and  women  indifferently — 
without  warrant  or  just  cause,  but  apart  from  that  he 
ruled  the  city  to  its  advantage.  In  mortal  dread  of 
yellow  fever,  he  cleaned  New  Orleans  as  it  had  never 
been  cleaned  before,  and  throughout  a  hot  summer  he 
kept  the  city  healthier  than  it  had  ever  been  in  all  its 
history. 

Having  thus  completely  achieved  that  "success" 
which  the  civilians  of  the  Navy  Department  had  "re- 
quired" of  him,  Farragut  was  ambitious  to  accomplish 
more.  He  proposed  further  operations  of  like  char- 
acter against  other  Confederate  ports  from  which 
commerce  was  being  carried  on  in  spite  of  the  block- 
ade. It  was  quite  obvious  that  no  blockade  could 
stop  this  commerce  on  which  the  South  so  largely  de- 
pended for  its  supplies.  The  only  way  in  which  the 
shutting  in  of  the  Confederacy  could  be  made  effect- 
ive was  to  capture  the  defensive  works  of  every  Con- 
federate port. 

To  that  task  Farragut  earnestly  desired  to  address 
himself.  It  was  his  purpose  to  make  himself  master 
of  every  Confederate  seaport,  relieve  the  blockading 
squadrons  of  their  expensive,  perilous,  difficult,  and 
ineffective  work,  and  completely  to  seal  the  South 
against  all  outward  or  inward  commerce  with  the 
world.  His  plan  was  to  substitute  the  absolute  pos- 
session of  Confederate  ports  for  their  manifestly  in- 
efficient blockade.     He  asked  permission,  therefore. 


Farragut  at  New  Orleans  349 

to  proceed  at  once  upon  this  mission,  beginning  with 
Mobile. 

The  civilians  in  control  of  the  Navy  Department 
promptly  said  him  nay.  They  had  other  plans  of  a 
more  spectacular  character.  So  they  ordered  Farra- 
gut to  proceed  up  the  Mississippi  river  and  waste 
precious  time  and  still  more  precious  lives,  in  a 
theatric  but  futile  "running  of  the  batteries"  at  Vicks- 
burg  and  Port  Hudson. 

Farragut  obeyed  of  course.  It  was  the  habit  of  his 
long  life  to  obey.  But  he  felt  keenly  the  loss  of  op- 
portunity which  this  order  of  a  badly  water-logged 
cabinet  bureau  imposed  upon  him.  While  he  was 
thus,  under  compulsion  of  the  incapables,  wasting  his 
time  in  the  Mississippi,  the  Confederates  were  send- 
ing out  precious  cargoes  of  cotton  and  bringing  in 
still  more  precious  ship-loads  of  cloth,  shoes,  artillery 
harness,  quinine,  arms,  ammunition  and  everything 
else  that  ministered  to  the  maintenance  of  their 
armies  in  the  field. 

Here  was  another  of  those  blunders  of  administra- 
tion which  helped  to  prolong  the  war  to  twice  its  neces- 
sary length  and  subjected  the  country,  North  and 
South,  to  needless  and  intolerable  burdens.  But  how 
should  a  civihan  Secretary  of  the  Navy  understand, 
as  Farragut  did,  the  ways  in  which  the  navy  could  be 
made  most  effectively  to  contribute  to  the  ending  of 
the  war?  A  system  that  puts  a  Gideon  Welles  in 
control  of  a  Farragut  must  take  the  consequences  of 
incapacity  on  the  part  of  its  official  head. 

Welles  forbade  Farragut  to  proceed  to  the  con- 
quest and  closing  of  the  Confederate  ports.    He  or- 


350         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

dered  him  instead  to  waste  time  and  energy  and 
human  Hf e  in  futile  and  fruitless  operations  in  front 
of  Vicksburg,  where  even  the  most  ordinary  intelli- 
gence should  have  seen  clearly  that  the  effective  work 
must  be  done  by  the  land  forces,  and  where  Grant  and 
Sherman  were  ready  to  do  it  well. 

This  judgment  does  not  rest  upon  the  opinion  of 
the  author  of  this  history.  It  is  supported  in  every 
detail  by  the  skilled  criticism  of  no  less  a  naval  author- 
ity than  Captain  Mahan.  In  his  "Farragut,"  page 
116  ^^  seq,,  that  highest  authority  in  naval  criticism 
has  written : 

"The  principal  result  of  an  effort  undertaken  with- 
out due  consideration  was  to  paralyze  a  large  fraction 
of  a  navy  too  small  in  numbers  to  afford  the  detach- 
ment which  was  paraded  gallantly,  but  uselessly, 
above  New  Orleans.  Nor  was  this  the  worst.  The 
time  thus  consumed  in  marching  up  the  hill  in  order  at 
once  to  march  down  again  threw  away  the  oppor- 
tunity for  reducing  Mobile  before  its  defenses  were 
strengthened.  Had  the  navy  been  large  enough,  both 
tasks  might  have  been  attempted;  but  it  will  appear 
in  the  sequel  that  its  scanty  numbers  were  the  reason 
which  postponed  the  attack  on  Mobile  from  month  to 
month  until  it  became  the  most  formidable  danger 
Farragut  ever  had  to  encounter." 

In  other  words,  the  policy  of  setting  a  Gideon 
Welles  to  direct  the  naval  operations  of  a  Farragut, 
resulted  in  making  a  difficult  task  out  of  a  very  easy 
one.  The  fall  of  New  Orleans  served  to  warn  the 
Confederates  of  the  danger  in  which  Mobile  lay,  and 
while  Welles  was  keeping  Farragut  uselessly  and 


Farragut  at  New  Orleans  351 

against  his  will  in  the  Mississippi,  skiUed  Confederate 
engineers  were  strengthening  the  Mobile  defenses 
and  planting  the  harbor  of  that  port  with  destructive 
mines  and  torpedoes,  so  that  Farragut's  task  of  clos- 
ing that  port,  when  months  later  he  was  reluctantly 
permitted  to  undertake  it,  was  difficult  and  perilous 
in  the  extreme,  where  it  had  been  simple,  easy,  and 
scarcely  at  all  dangerous  to  ships  or  seamen  at  the 
time  when  he  had  asked  permission  to  proceed  to  its 
accomplishment. 

But  the  Pinafore  practice  of  setting  an  untramed, 
inexperienced  and  ignorant  politician  to  direct  the  sci- 
entific and  strictly  professional  work  of  highly  trained 
naval  officers,  is  too  firmly  imbedded  in  our  system 
of  administration  to  be  disturbed  by  considerations 
of  mere  common-sense.  When  war  is  on,  the  country 
pays  the  penalty  of  this  folly. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

McClellan^s  Peninsular  Advance 

We  have  already  seen  from  his  own  reports  what 
McClellan  thought  of  the  force  he  was  called  upon  to 
command  at  and  near  Washington  after  the  disas- 
trous defeat  of  McDowell  at  Manassas.  There  was, 
he  said,  "no  army  to  command — a  mere  collection  of 
regiments,  cowering  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac, 
some  perfectly  raw,  others  dispirited  by  recent  de- 
feat,  others   going   home Washington   was 

crowded  with  straggling  officers  and  men  absent  from 
their  stations  without  authority." 

Slowly,  patiently,  painfully,  McClellan  brought 
order  out  of  this  chaos  of  demoralization.  Out  of  the 
broken  and  utterly  dispirited  fragments  of  McDow- 
ell's army  and  out  of  the  new,  raw  levies  sent  to  him 
he  created  that  Army  of  the  Potomac  which  fought 
the  great  campaigns  of  the  war. 

In  the  meantime  an  ignorant  and  impatient  popular 
clamor  and  an  unintelligent  press  "opinion" — for 
there  is  a  certain  type  of  newspaper  editor  who  is  apt 
to  regard  his  own  hasty  and  ill-informed  judgment  of 
things  that  he  knows  little  or  nothing  about,  as  an 
"opinion" — ^hounded  and  persecuted  the  man  who  was 
expected  to  retrieve  the  Manassas  defeat.  Even  Mr. 
Lincoln,  with  all  his  patience,  became  impatient  of 
McClellan's  inaction — which  was  excessive  perhaps — 

352 


McClellans  Peninsular  Advance  353 

and  almost  angrily  urged  him  to  action.  He  called 
the  general's  attention  to  the  fact  that  he  had  under 
his  command  a  force  greatly  superior  in  numbers  to 
any  that  the  Confederates  could  muster  and  that  the 
country  was  impatient  for  an  advance. 

McClellan  seems  to  have  had  no  thought  of  miaking 
his  way  to  Richmond  by  the  route  of  Centreville  and 
Manassas,  where  Johnston  lay  behind  impregnable 
fortifications.  He  knew  the  easier  road  of  approach 
up  the  James  river  from  Fortress  Monroe  as  a  base 
of  operations.  But,  at  all  hazards,  the  Government, 
the  press  and  the  people  insisted,  Washington  city 
must  be  covered  and  protected,  and  so  McClellan's 
first  care  was  to  feel  of  the  works  at  Centreville  and 
Manassas  before  transferring  his  army  down  the  Po- 
tomac and  the  Chesapeake  to  Fortress  Monroe.  Ac- 
cordingly, on  the  tenth  of  March,  1862,  he  pushed  a 
column  forward  toward  Centreville  and  Manassas 
only  to  find  those  strongly  fortified  positions  already 
abandoned.  General  Johnston  had  interpreted  Mc- 
Clellan's plans  aright,  and  was  transferring  his  army 
to  the  Peninsula  east  of  Richmond  in  order  to  meet 
his  adversary's  confidently-expected  advance  in  that 
quarter. 

There  was  nothing  now,  neither  defended  works 
nor  an  opposing  army,  to  forbid  McClellan's  march 
upon  Richmond  by  the  Manassas  route,  while  it  was 
certain  that  Johnston  was  fortifying  Williamsburg 
and  other  defensible  points  upon  the  other  route  and 
concentrating  his  forces  there  to  meet  McClellan's 
advance  when  it  should  come. 

But  McClellan  was  above  all  things  a  man  of  or- 

1-23 


354         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

derly  and  methodic  mind,  a  man  not  to  be  turned 
from  a  pre-arranged  plan  of  action  by  the  offering 
of  any  opportunity,  however  advantageous  it  might 
be.  So  instead  of  pushing  on  towards  Richmond  by 
the  route  which  his  enemy  had  thus  left  undefended, 
he  turned  about,  sent  his  army  by  water  to  Fortress 
Monroe,  and  confronted  his  adversary  where  that  ad- 
versary was  best  prepared  at  all  points  to  meet  him. 

In  the  meanwhile  General  Burnside  had  completed 
the  occupation  of  the  southern  coast  by  the  seizure  of 
Beaufort,  Roanoke,  Newberne  and  Fort  Macon,  and 
another  Federal  force  a  little  later,  on  the  eleventh  of 
April,  captured  Fort  Pulaski,  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Savannah  river. 

After  great  urgency  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Lincoln, 
who,  in  his  homely  phrase,  feared  that  McClellan's 
army  might  "take  root"  around  Washington,  that 
officer  at  last  transferred  one  hundred  and  twenty-one 
thousand  men  to  the  neighborhood  of  Fortress  Mon- 
roe, with  every  adjunctive  aid  that  an  army  could  re- 
quire or  make  useful.  His  force  outnumbered  the 
Confederates  nearly  two  to  one,  but  it  was  McClel- 
lan's habit  of  mind  to  exaggerate  the  strength  of  his 
enemy.  It  was  also  his  bad  habit,  as  it  was  Halleck's, 
to  proceed  with  an  exaggerated  respect  for  military 
"regularity."  So  instead  of  pushing  forward  up  the 
peninsula  that  lay  between  the  James  and  the  York 
rivers,  and  simply  running  over  the  vastly  inferior 
forces  of  his  enemy,  as  a  general  of  enterprising  mind 
would  have  done,  he  advanced  "scientifically"  and 
with  scientific  slowness. 

The  first  point  of  contact  was  at  Yorktown,  where 


McClellans  Peninsular  Advance  355 

General  Magruder  lay  with  13,000  Confederates, 
McClellan's  army  of  assault — i.e.,  his  advance  force — 
numbered  no  less  than  58,000  men  and  100  guns. 
According  to  his  custom  McClellan  enormously  over- 
estimated the  strength  of  his  adversary,  and  instead 
of  hurling  his  superior  force  upon  the  Confederate 
works,  or  using  his  fleet  to  pass  them  by,  as  General 
Johnston  expected  him  to  do,  he  sat  down  before 
Yorktown  and  instituted  a  regular  siege  approach  by 
parallels. 

Reinforcements  came  to  him  daily  and  even  Hourly, 
until  he  had  nearly  120,000  men  and  more  than  a  hun- 
dred guns  with  which  to  assail  Magruder's  scant 
13,000  men  and  less  than  thirty  guns. 

But  he  did  not  make  the  assault.  Instead  he  re-, 
mained  inactive  for  nearly  a  month  before  Yorktown 
with  about  nine  men  under  his  command  to  his  adver-^ 
sary's  one,  doing  nothing  energetic  or  determined. 
When  at  last  he  advanced  upon  the  works  which  he 
might  have  run  over  on  the  day  of  his  arrival  before 
them,  he  found  no  force  defending  them  and  only 
"dummy"  guns  in  the  shape  of  painted  logs  occupy- 
ing their  embrasures.  Comic  opera  itself  has  few 
situations  more  ridiculous  than  was  this  of  McClellan 
at  the  end  of  his  month's  "siege"  of  Yorktown,  de- 
fended through  a  large  part  of  the  siege  by  less  than 
one  man  to  his  nine,  and  at  the  last  defended  only  by 
"quaker"  guns,  with  no  men  at  all  behind  them. 

Finding  that  the  position  against  which  he  had  so 
elaborately  provided  siege  appliances  was  vacated  by 
his  enemy,  McClellan  advanced  to  Williamsburg, 
where  he  encountered  actual  resistance  on  the  fourth 
of  May  and  the  days  following. 


356         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

Here  was  one  of  those  situations,  of  which  the  war 
presented  so  many,  which  it  is  difficult  to  reconcile 
with  our  accepted  estimates  of  the  military  capacity  of 
the  generals  on  either  side. 

McClellan  was  moving  up  the  Peninsula,  threaten- 
ing Richmond  with  about  120,000  men — official  re- 
ports say  119,965.  He  had  left  70,000  men  at  or  near 
Washington  to  protect  the  capital,  and  the  authori- 
ties there  had  detained  10,000  or  15,000  more  for 
safety.  McDowell,  with  40,000  men  of  this  force  had 
been  pushed  forward  to  Fredericksburg  on  the  Po- 
tomac, with  the  intent  that  he  should  make  a  junction 
with  McClellan  before  Richmond,  swelling  that  gen- 
eral's force  to  about  160,000  men.  Jackson  having 
been  driven  back  in  the  valley  of  Virginia  the  danger 
to  Washington  seemed  for  the  moment  past,  and 
Franklin's  division  had  been  sent  to  strengthen  Mc- 
Clellan's  main  column. 

In  brief,  McClellan  had  almost  exactly  120,000 
men  immediately  with  him,  while  40,000  more  under 
McDowell  were  moving  unopposed  from  Fredericks- 
burg to  join  him  and  swell  his  army  to  about  160,000. 
As  McDowell  was  presently  called  back  for  the  de- 
fense of  Washington,  in  view  of  the  renewal  of 
"Stonewall"  Jackson's  threatening  operations  in  the 
Shenandoah  Valley,  it  is  only  fair  to  reckon  McClel- 
lan's  force  at  the  120,000,  which  his  morning  reports 
showed  that  he  had  with  him  below  Richmond. 
Johnston  in  command  at  Richmond  had  rather  less 
than  50,000  men  with  which  to  oppose  this  force. 

Deeply  feeling  his  responsibility  and  the  enormous 
disadvantage  at  which  he  was  placed,  the  Confederate 


McClellan's  Peninsular  Advance  357 

general  asked  for  reinforcements.  He  proposed  that 
all  the  troops  in  the  Carolinas,  where  they  were  in  no 
wise  needed,  and  all  in  the  valley  of  Virginia,  and  all 
at  Norfolk  and  other  points  from  which  they  could 
be  spared,  should  be  concentrated  under  his  com- 
mand in  front  of  Richmond,  in  order  that  with  an 
adequate  force  he  might  assail  McClellan,  who  was 
in  a  vulnerable  position,  and,  overcoming  him,  turn 
about  and  crush  McDowell. 

A  council  of  war,  of  which  General  Robert  E.  Lee 
was  the  dominant  member,  overruled  this  apparently 
wise  proposal,  for  reasons  that  have  never  been  made 
clear.  Thus  Johnston,  with  50,000  men,  was  left  to 
defend  Richmond  against  the  double  advance  of 
McClellan's  120,000  from  the  east  and  McDowell's 
40,000  from  the  north. 

To  do  that  successfully  he  must,  of  course,  fall 
back  to  the  neighborhood  of  the  city  and  concentrate 
his  force  behind  the  strongest  earthworks  he  could 
construct.  The  aggressive  measures  which  he  desired 
to  take  were  wholly  out  of  the  question  for  the  time 
at  least. 

Nevertheless  Magruder  made  a  stubborn  stand  at 
Williamsburg,  giving  Johnston  time  to  fortify.  It 
was  only  after  two  days  of  very  severe  fighting,  and 
with  a  loss  of  2,200  men  against  a  Confederate  loss  of 
1,800  that  McClellan  at  last  forced  the  Confederate 
detachment — for  it  was  only  a  detachment  and  not  a 
very  strong  one  at  that — to  fall  back  from  Williams- 
burg to  the  main  line  of  defense  and  join  itself  to 
Johnston's  army,  of  which  it  was  a  part. 

The  battle  of  Williamsburg  was  strategically  of  no 


358         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

consequence  except  as  a  part  of  a  campaign  of  delay. 
It  would  be  an  idle  waste  of  space,  a  needless  taxing 
of  the  reader's  attention,  to  recount  its  strategy  in 
detail.  It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  after  delaying  Mc- 
Cleilan's  advance  for  two  days  and  inflicting  a  heavy 
loss  upon  him,  the  Confederates  withdrew  in  good  or- 
der to  the  main  defenses  of  Richmond. 

McClellan  now  sent  Franklin's  division  on  trans- 
ports to  the  White  House  at  the  head  of  the  York 
river,  to  establish  there  a  secure  base  of  supplies.  The 
whole  army  followed  and  by  the  sixteenth  of  May  it 
was  concentrated  there. 

This  was  then  the  situation.  McClellan  lay  at  the 
White  House  within  twenty- four  miles  of  Richmond. 
He  had  more  nearly  three  than  two  men  to  his  adver- 
sary's one  under  his  immediate  command  and  he  had 
an  army  nearly  equal  to  his  enemy's,  within  two  or 
three  days'  march  ready  to  reinforce  him,  or  better 
still,  to  assail  his  adversary  in  flank. 

A  general  of  such  enterprise  as  General  Sheridan, 
or  General  Sherman,  or  General  Grant,  or  General 
Thomas,  placed  in  such  circumstances,  would  unques- 
tionably have  pressed  forward  to  the  assault. 

But  McClellan's  timid  imagination  swelled  John- 
ston's force  of  50,000  or  less  to  120,000  or  more  and 
he  hesitated.  Instead  of  pushing  forward  by  the 
shortest  roads  to  Richmond  he  scientifically  "devel- 
oped" his  force  along  the  Chickahominy  river  to  the 
north  of  Richmond,  and,  after  fortifying,  made  a 
requisition  for  reinforcements. 

In  the  meanwhile  "Stonewall"  Jackson  had  achieved 
some  briUiant  successes  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley 


McClellan's  Peninsular  Advance  359 

which  so  far  seemed  to  threaten  Washington  with 
assault,  that  McDowell's  force  of  40,000  men  was  re- 
called from  its  march  to  reinforce  McClellan  and  sent 
to  ward  off  the  danger  of  an  advance  upon  the  Fed- 
eral capital  by  that  peculiarly  energetic  and  enterpris- 
ing commander. 

But  even  without  McDowell's  expected  reinforce- 
ment, McClellan  had  greatly  more  than  twice  his  ad- 
versary's force.  It  is  impossible  to  doubt  that  if  he 
had  been  moved  by  anything  like  Grant's  habitual 
and  determined  impulse  to  "press  things"  he  would 
promptly  have  hurled  his  overwhelming  force  against 
his  adversary's  defensive  lines. 

McClellan,  however,  was  not  Grant  nor  such  as  he. 
He  had  a  superior  skill  in  the  theoretical  science  of 
war  but  an  immeasurably  inferior  capacity  for  war's 
practical  work. 

North  of  Richmond  and  from  five  to  seven  miles 
distant  the  Chickahominy  river  runs  in  a  course  almost 
due  east  from  its  source.  McClellan  placed  his  main 
force  north  of  that  erratic  and  uncertain  stream  and 
there  awaited  the  reinforcements  for  which  he  was 
clamorously  calling.  But  he  threw  his  left  wing 
across  the  river  to  the  Richmond  side  of  it.  Unless  he 
were  prepared  to  advance  at  once  with  all  his  force 
and  assail  the  Confederate  works  this  was  an  exceed- 
ingly dangerous  thing  to  do,  for  the  Chickahominy  is 
a  phenomenally  uncertain  and  erratic  river.  In  dry 
weather  it  is  scarcely  more  than  a  brook,  but  in  periods 
of  rain — and  spring  in  Virginia  is  a  rainy  season — it 
swells  suddenly  and  quickly  to  almost  impassable  pro- 
portions, while  the  swamps  that  form  its  banks  be- 


360         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

come  morasses  in  which  it  is  difficult  to  find  even  a 
foothold,  and  impossible  to  discover  a  fit  camping 
place  for  troops.  When  McClellan  established  his 
left  wing  south  of  the  river  the  stream  presented  no 
obstacle  to  its  prompt  reinforcement  from  the  other 
side  in  case  of  need.  But  presently  the  windows  of 
heaven  were  opened  and  the  fountains  of  the  great 
deep  were  broken  up.  The  floods  came,  and  this 
isolated  left  wing  was  cut  off  and  left  mainly  to  its 
own  devices  for  self -maintenance. 

The  Confederate  General  Johnston  was  quick  to 
see  and  seize  this  opportunity.  On  the  morning  of 
the  thirty-first  of  May,  he  assailed  the  detached  left 
wing  and  there  resulted  the  two-days'  battle  called 
Fair  Oaks  at  the  North,  and  Seven  Pines  at  the 
South. 

Johnston's  force  scarcely,  if  at  all,  outnumbered 
the  detached  left  wing  of  McClellan's  army,  but  his 
hope  was,  by  determined  fighting  to  cut  off  that  part 
of  McClellan's  army  from  the  main  body  that  lay 
north  of  the  river,  and  to  crush  and  destroy  it  before 
it  could  be  reinforced. 

In  his  first  assaults  he  was  conspicuously  successful, 
and  had  his  expectation  been  realized  that  McClellan 
would  be  unable  to  reinforce  his  detached  left  wing 
from  the  other  side  of  the  river  it  is  probable  that 
Johnston's  operation  would  have  made  prisoners  of 
that  wing  of  McClellan's  army  which  lay  south  of  the 
turbulent  river.  But  two  events  stood  in  the  way. 
One  of  the  many  frail  bridges  across  the  Chickahom- 
iny  remained,  in  spite  of  the  floods,  as  an  available 
means  of  crossing.     Some  of  its  supports  had  given 


McClellans  Peninsular  Advance  361 

way  under  pressure  of  the  waters  and  it  was  mani- 
festly tottering  to  its  fall.  But  General  Sumner, 
ordered  to  support  the  imperiled  force  south  of  the 
river,  heroically  disregarded  the  danger  and  pushed 
his  force  across  the  frail  and  tottering  structure,  or- 
dering his  men  to  "break  step"  in  the  passage  in  order 
that  the  swing  of  the  cadenced  step  might  not  cause 
the  bridge  to  sway  and  fall.  Thus  perilously,  he 
crossed,  just  in  time  to  meet  and  defeat  a  Confeder- 
ate effort  to  gain  control  of  the  bridge  and  destroy  it, 
thus  completely  cutting  off  communication  between 
the  two  wings  of  the  Union  Army. 

The  second  event  of  importance  in  this  battle  was 
the  very  serious  wounding  of  General  Johnston.  He 
received  in  his  body  a  bullet,  which  incapacitated  him 
for  months  to  come  for  any  active  service.  This  was 
only  one  of  thirteen  wounds  that  Johnston  had  re- 
ceived during  his  military  career.  General  Scott  had 
described  him  as  "a  most  capable  officer,  who  has  the 
bad  habit  of  getting  himself  wounded,"  and  here 
again  he  had  indulged  in  that  bad  habit  to  the  serious 
detriment  of  the  cause  he  served.  For  when  he  was 
wounded  the  command  passed  into  the  hands  of  Gen- 
eral Gustavus  W.  Smith,  ex- Street  Commissioner  of 
New  York  City,  whose  fitness  for  so  high  a  command 
was,  to  say  the  very  least,  problematical.  Under  his 
direction  the  movement  by  which  Johnston  had  hoped 
to  achieve  so  much  came  to  naught. 

Two  days  later  Robert  E.  Lee  assumed  direct  com- 
mand of  the  Confederate  Army  at  Richmond,  and 
from  that  hour  forth  the  war  took  on  a  new  character. 
One  of  the  two  great  master  minds — Lee  and  Grant 


362         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

— was  at  last  in  control  of  the  means  with  which  the 
struggle  was  to  be  fought  out  to  a  finish.  The  other 
of  those  two  great  master  minds  was  still  under  the 
control  of  distinctly  inferior  "superiors." 

With  the  advent  of  Lee  to  direct  command,  the 
terms  of  the  war  problem  were  set  anew.  He  made  of 
the  Virginia  army  such  a  fighting  machine  as  has 
rarely  been  known  in  the  history  of  the  world.  It  was 
not  until  nearly  two  years  later  that  Grant  was  per- 
mitted to  act  upon  his  conviction,  repeatedly  formu- 
lated, that  the  strength  of  the  Confederacy  and  the 
danger  to  the  Union  lay,  not  in  the  possession  of 
strategic  positions,  but  in  the  fighting  force  of  that 
Army  of  Northern  Virginia  which  responded  to 
every  demand  of  Lee  for  heroic  self-sacrifice,  as  the 
needle  responds  to  the  attraction  of  the  pole.  In  the 
meanwhile  Lee  and  his  army  were  a  ceaseless  menace 
to  the  Federal  capital  and  the  Federal  cause.  From 
the  moment  of  his  accession  to  command  until  the 
hour  in  which  he  met  Grant  at  the  Wilderness,  Lee 
dictated  the  course  and  conduct  of  the  war,  and  in  an 
extraordinary  degree  dominated  its  events. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

Jackson's  Valley  Campaign 

No  sooner  had  Lee  come  into  command  than  he  set 
out  to  change  and  reverse  the  existing  conditions  of 
the  war.  He  was  determined  to  drive  McClellan 
away  from  Richmond,  to  put  an  end  to  siege  opera- 
tions that,  if  persisted  in,  must  ultimately  result  in 
the  capture  of  that  city,  and  to  transfer  to  some 
more  distant  point  the  scene  of  active  hostilities.  In 
other  words,  it  was  Lee's  purpose  to  change  a  dis- 
piriting defense  into  an  all-inspiring  offense,  to  raise 
McClellan's  siege  of  Richmond  and  to  institute  in  its 
stead  operations  that  should  put  Washington  upon 
the  defensive. 

To  that  end  he  began  by  strengthening  his  army. 
He  deemed  the  time  now  ripe  to  adopt  the  plan  which 
he  had  negatived  as  premature  when  Johnston  had 
suggested  it.  He  called  to  Richmond  all  the  avail- 
able forces  that  could  be  spared  from  the  Southern 
coasts  and  elsewhere,  swelling  his  army  to  70,000  or 
80,000  men. 

This  reinforcement  did  not  indeed  give  him  an 
army  equal  to  McClellan's  in  numbers  or  in  equip- 
ment, but  it  materially  reduced  the  disparity  between 
the  two  opposing  forces  and  opened  the  way  to  a  hope- 
ful trial  of  conclusions  in  the  field. 

But  there  was,  as  already  stated,  a  strong  Federal 

363 


364         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

force  inarching  by  way  of  Fredericksburg  to  join 
McClellan.  It  numbered  more  than  40,000  men  and 
was  under  the  very  capable  command  of  General 
McDowell.  If  that  force  should  form  a  junction 
with  McClellan  the  odds  against  Lee,  in  spite  of  re- 
inforcement, would  be  decisive,  and  any  attempt  he 
might  make  to  save  the  Confederate  capital  by  offen- 
sive defense  must  fail. 

Lee's  first  necessity,  therefore,  was  to  prevent  Mc- 
Dowell's army  of  40,000  men  from  joining  McClellan 
before  Richmond;  his  second  purpose  was  to  bring  all 
his  own  forces  to  bear  at  that  crucial  point  for  a  su- 
preme effort  to  overthrow  his  adversary  there. 

He  knew  the  excessive  apprehension  felt  at  the 
North  for  the  safety  of  Washington  city,  and  he 
played  upon  it  with  masterly  skill.  Ever  since  No- 
vember, 1861,  Stonewall  Jackson  had  been  in  the  Val- 
ley of  the  Shenandoah  trying  with  a  totally  inade- 
quate force  to  hold  that  region  and  upon  occasion  to 
inflict  what  damage  he  could  upon  the  foe,  especially 
by  destroying  a  section  of  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio 
railroad  and  of  the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio  canal,  upon 
which  the  Federal  communications  between  the  forces 
in  West  Virginia  and  the  headquarters  at  Washing- 
ton depended.  Jackson  had  done  some  brilliant 
things  in  that  quarter  and  had  succeeded  in  detaining 
there  a  Federal  force  much  greater  than  his  own, 
which  if  set  free  to  join  McClellan  would  have  made 
the  Federal  army  before  Richmond  irresistible  in  its 
strength. 

But  inferiority  of  force  was  by  no  means  the  sor- 
est difficulty  that  Jackson  had  contended  with  during 


Jackson's  Valley  Campaign  365 

all  those  months  of  winter  marchings  and  fightings 
amid  snowstorms.  On  the  Southern  as  on  the  North- 
ern side  every  really  capable  general  was  embarrassed 
by  the  ignorant  and  intrusive  dictation  of  men  in 
place  above  him.  As  Grant  was  paralyzingly  domi- 
nated by  Halleck's  interference  at  every  critical  mo- 
ment in  his  western  campaigns,  and  as  Farragut  was 
restrained  from  obviously  easy  and  supremely  de- 
sirable achievement  by  the  hand  of  ignorant  authority 
in  the  Navy  Department  at  Washington,  so  Jack- 
son, in  the  Valley,  found  his  military  plans  brought 
to  naught  by  the  interference  of  a  civilian  Secretary 
of  War  who,  having  authority,  chose  to  use  it  in  giv- 
ing orders  to  Jackson's  troops  in  the  field  without  so 
much  as  consulting  Jackson  as  to  his  reasons  for  post- 
ing them  as  he  had  done.  Beauregard  and  Johnston 
at  Manassas  had  encountered  a  like  difficulty  and  had 
several  times  been  upon  the  point  of  resigning  their 
commissions  in  despair  of  achieving  any  worthy  re- 
sults under  such  conditions  of  ignorant  and  arbitrary 
control.  Jackson  was  driven  further  and  on  the  thir- 
ty-first of  January,  1862,  he  wrote  in  despair  to  Gov- 
ernor Letcher  of  Virginia,  asking  that  he  be  ordered 
back  to  his  professor's  chair  in  the  Virginia  Military 
Institute,  and  tendering  his  resignation  as  a  major- 
general  if  such  an  order  could  not  be  given. 

The  circumstances  were  these.  With  great  diffi- 
culty, at  serious  risk  of  defeat  and  by  exacting  a 
positively  heroic  endurance  on  the  part  of  his  men  in 
marches  through  snow  and  sleet  and  mud,  Jackson 
had  conquered  the  strategic  control  of  the  region  un- 
der his  command  from  an  enemy  greatly  outnumber- 


366         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

ing  him.  The  strategic  key  to  the  position  thus 
conquered  was  Romney  and  there  Jackson  had  sta- 
tioned Loring  with  a  force  strong  enough  to  hold  the 
place  while  keeping  in  touch  with  Jackson  himself. 
This  disposition  rendered  the  valley,  with  all  its  strate- 
gic advantages,  a  secure  Confederate  possession  and 
a  military  base  from  which  it  was  easy  to  threaten  or 
with  reinforcements  to  assail  Washington  and  the 
country  north  of  the  Potomac. 

No  sooner  had  Jackson  by  genius  and  heroic  en- 
deavor secured  this  advantage  for  the  Confederate 
arms  than  the  lawyer  at  the  head  of  the  War  Depart- 
ment at  Richmond  assumed  to  undo  his  work  by  an 
order  which  Jackson  obeyed  as  a  soldier,  but  bitterly 
resented  as  a  strategist  baffled  by  the  ignorance  and 
arrogant  assumption  of  his  civilian  superior  officer. 
His  letter  to  Governor  Letcher  which  follows  suffi- 
ciently explains  the  matter: 

Winchester,  January  31,  1862 
Governor: — This  morning  I  received  an  order  from  the 
Secretary  of  War  to  order  General  Loring  and  his  command 
to  fall  back  from  Romney  to  this  place  immediately.  The 
order  was  promptly  complied  with;  but  as  the  order  was 
given  without  consulting  me  and  is  abandoning  to  the  enemy 
what  has  cost  much  preparation,  expense  and  exposure  to 
secure,  and  is  in  direct  conflict  with  my  military  plans,  and 
implies  a  want  of  confidence  in  my  capacity  to  judge  when 
General  Loring's  troops  should  fall  back,  and  is  an  attempt 
to  control  military  operations  in  detail  from  the  Secretary's 
desk  at  a  distance,^  I  have,  for  the  reasons  set  forth  in  the 
accompanying  paper,  requested  to  be  ordered  back  to  the 
Institute  and  if  this  is  denied  me,  then  to  have  my  resignation 
*The  italics  are  inserted  by  the  author  of  this  history.  They  are 
intended  to  direct  attention  to  the  marrow  of  the  matter. 


Jackson's  Valley  Campaign  367 

accepted.       I  ask  as  a  special  favor  that  you  will  have  me 
ordered  back  to  the  Institute. 

As  a  single  order  like  that  of  the  Secretary  may  destroy 
the  entire  fruits  of  a  campaign  I  cannot  reasonably  expect 
if  my  operations  are  thus  to  be  interfered  with  to  be  of  much 
service  in  the  field.  ...  If  I  have  ever  acquired  by  the  bless- 
ing of  Providence  any  influence  over  troops  this  undoing  of 
my  work  by  the  Secretary  may  greatly  diminish  that  influ- 
ence. 
*  ******** 

I  desire  to  say  nothing  against  the  Secretary  of  War.     I 
take  it  for  granted  that  he  has  done  what  he  believed  to  be 
best,  but  I  regard  such  a  policy  as  ruinous. 
Very  truly  your  friend, 

T.  J.  Jackson 

Let  the  reader  imagine  if  he  can,  a  lawyer  utterly 
unskilled  in  military  affairs  and  completely  unac- 
quainted with  even  the  topography  of  the  valley,  sit- 
ting in  Richmond,  and  undertaking  not  only  to  direct 
the  movements  of  troops  in  that  region  but  to  cancel 
and  reverse  the  orders  of  Stonewall  Jackson  without 
so  much  as  asking  his  opinion  of  a  situation  which  that 
Napoleonic  commander  had  painfully  wrought  out 
with  inadequate  means  and  in  face  of  difficulties  that 
might  well  have  appalled  even  his  resolute  spirit.  Such 
imagining  will  help  to  a  comprehension  of  the  peculiar 
difficulties  at  that  time  needlessly  thrown  in  the  way 
of  the  men  to  whom  was  assigned  the  task  of  conduct- 
ing the  war  to  a  successful  conclusion.  The  like 
thing  was  a  familiar  story  on  both  sides  at  that  period 
of  the  war,  and  it  cost  both  sides  many  thousands  of 
human  lives  and  many  millions  of  treasure. 

These  are  not  pleasant  facts  for  the  historian  to 
record,  but  they  must  be  set  down  if  the  story  of  the 


368         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

war  is  to  be  told  with  truth  and  in  a  fashion  to  be 
understood. 

Not  only  did  Judah  P.  Benjamin,  the  unmilitary 
lawyer  who  held  the  post  of  Secretary  of  War,  assume 
to  interfere  with  Jackson's  dispositions  of  his  troops 
without  consulting  Jackson;  his  arrogance  had  an 
even  more  astounding  manifestation.  Jackson  was 
acting  in  the  valley  under  the  command  of  his  supe- 
rior officer,  General  Joseph  E.  Johnston,  who  had  sent 
him  thither,  who  trusted  him  implicitly,  and  who  very 
wisely  and  properly  left  to  his  trained  skill  and  well- 
approved  judgment  every  detail  of  a  campaign,  the 
general  purport  of  which  was  all  that  even  Johnston, 
as  conmianding  general,  responsible  for  results,  as- 
sumed the  right  to  dictate  to  such  a  man  as  Jackson. 
Benjamin,  the  lawyer  Secretary  of  War,  was  so  far 
ignorant  or  negligent  of  those  forms  and  courtesies 
of  military  life  upon  which  military  success  very 
largely  depends  that  he  sent  his  order  directly  to  Jack- 
son, instead  of  sending  it,  as  common  courtesy  and  all 
military  usage  properly  required,  through  Jackson's 
commander.  General  Johnston.  This  seriously  en- 
dangered results  and  it  was  an  affront  to  Johnston 
which  that  officer  would  have  been  fully  justified  in 
resenting  with  his  own  resignation.  It  was  something 
far  worse  than  an  affront.  It  was  an  impertinent 
interference  with  Johnston's  military  plans  as  well 
as  with  Jackson's — an  interference  of  ignorance  with 
the  activities  of  knowledge  which  might  easily  have 
defeated  operations  of  the  utmost  consequence. 

It  seems  incredible,  but  it  is  a  fact,  that  General 
Johnston,  the  officer  at  that  time  charged  with  the 


Jackson's  Valley  Campaign  369 

supreme  command  in  Virginia,  never  knew  or  heard 
of  the  order  of  the  Secretary  of  War  to  Stonewall 
Jackson,  utterly  disorganizing  his  plans  and  direct- 
ing him  to  surrender  all  that  he  had  painfully 
achieved  of  strategic  advantage,  until  Jackson's  letter 
to  Governor  Letcher,  tendering  his  resignation  in 
righteous  resentment  of  the  interference  and  in  de- 
spair of  accomplishing  worthy  results  under  such  con- 
ditions, came  to  General  Johnston  in  the  regular 
course.  For  Jackson  was  far  too  well  educated  a 
soldier  to  send  his  letter,  even  though  it  was  personal 
and  was  addressed  to  the  Governor  of  Virginia,  other- 
wise than  through  his  regular  military  superiors. 

Upon  reading  that  letter  and  its  inclosed  communi- 
cation to  the  Secretary  of  War  and  learning  for  the 
first  time  of  Benjamin's  interference  with  Jackson's 
operations,  General  Johnston  sought  to  save  to  the 
Confederacy  the  inestimable  services  of  his  great 
lieutenant.    He  wrote  to  Jackson  as  follows : 

My  Dear  Friend: — I  have  just  read  with  profound  regret 
your  letter  to  the  Secretary  of  War  asking  to  be  relieved 
from  your  present  command,  either  by  an  order  to  the  Vir- 
ginia Military  Institute  or  the  acceptance  of  your  resignation. 
Let  me  beg  you  to  reconsider  this  matter.  Under  ordinary 
circumstances  a  due  sense  of  one's  own  dignity,  as  well  as 
care  for  professional  character  and  official  rights,  would 
demand  such  a  course  as  yours.  But  the  character  of  the 
war,  the  great  energy  exhibited  by  the  government  of  the 
United  States,  the  danger  in  which  our  very  existence  as  an 
independent  people  Hes,  require  sacrifices  from  us  all  who 
have  been  educated  as  soldiers.  /  receive  my  information  of 
the  order  of  which  you  have  such  cause  to  complain  from 
your  letter.  Is  not  that  as  great  an  official  wrong  to  me  as 
the  order  itself  to  you?  Let  us  dispassionately  reason  with 
1-24. 


670         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

the  government  on  this  subject  of  command,  and  if  we  fail 
to  influence  its  practice,  then  ask  to  be  relieved  from  posi- 
tions the  authority  of  which  is  exercised  by  the  War 
Department  while  the  responsibilities  are  left  to  us,''^ 

I  have  taken  the  liberty  to  detain  your  letter,  to  make  this 
appeal  to  your  patriotism,  not  merely  from  warm  feelings  of 
personal  regard  but  from  the  official  opinion  which  makes 
me  regard  you  as  necessary  to  the  service  of  your  country 
in  your  present  position. 

General  Johnston's  appeal  to  Jackson  to  continue 
in  the  service  in  spite  of  the  ignorant,  embarrassing, 
and  grossly  ill-mannered  interference  with  his  opera- 
tions by  the  Secretary  of  War,  was  supported  by  a 
multitude  of  letters  and  appeals  from  statesmen,  citi- 
zens, generals  and  common  soldiers — ^many  of  the 
latter  being  men  of  high  social  and  political  distinc- 
tion who  had  enlisted  in  the  ranks  in  a  war  that  all 
regarded  as  their  own,  but  whose  enlistment  had  in  no 
wise  invalidated  their  right  to  speak  with  authority  as 
representative  citizens. 

Governor  Letcher  went  at  once  to  the  War  De- 
partment to  plead  with  Secretary  Benjamin  for  the 
saving  of  Stonewall  Jackson's  genius  and  devotion  to 
the  Confederate  cause.  Benjamin  so  far  yielded  as 
to  hold  open  the  question  of  Jackson's  resignation. 
He  had  not  intended  to  provoke  that.  It  is  doubtful 
that  he  would  have  dared  it.  He  had  not  intended 
anything,  indeed,  except  to  impress  his  own  authority 

*The  italics  are  inserted  by  the  author  of  this  work  to  empha- 
size the  peculiar  stupidity  that  on  both  sides  in  the  war  permitted 
ignorance  to  overrule  knowledge  and  self-assumption  to  dominate 
skill.  This  particular  interference  came  near  depriving  Lee  of  the 
superb  genius  of  Stonewall  Jackson  as  Halleck's  interference  well  nigh 
lost  Grant  to  the  Federal  army. 


Jackson's  Valley  Campaign  371 

upon  the  army.  When  he  understood  how  great  a 
loss  Jackson  would  be  to  the  cause,  and  how  narrowly 
his  own  grossly  irregular  interference  with  Jackson 
had  missed  compelling  the  resignations  of  Beaure- 
gard, Johnston,  and  a  host  of  others  in  high  and  low 
position,  Mr.  Benjamin  became  placative  in  an  ex- 
treme degree. 

In  the  meanwhile  he  had  sacrificed  all  that  Jack- 
son's energy  and  genius  had  accomplished  in  the  Val- 
ley and  had  discouraged  the  army  in  a  degree  and  to 
an  extent  for  which  no  later  efficiency  could  by  any 
possibility  atone.  Until  Benjamin  interfered  with 
him  Jackson  was  master  of  the  Valley,  and  of  all  that 
its  possession  signified,  by  virtue  of  his  painful  en- 
deavors to  achieve  that  highly  desirable  result  by 
means  of  arduous  campaigns  in  snow  and  sleet  and 
slush  and  mud.  If  he  had  been  let  alone  Jackson 
would  have  been  in  undisputed  command  of  the  up- 
per Potomac  country;  he  would  have  had  Maryland 
and  southern  Pennsylvania  thenceforth  always  at  his 
mercy;  and  with  reinforcements  that  might  at  any 
moment  have  been  sent  to  him  he  would  have  been  in 
position  to  threaten  Washington  in  a  way  possibly  to 
compel  the  instant  withdrawal  of  McClellan's  army 
from  Richmond  and  the  recall  of  McDowell's  from 
Fredericksburg. 

As  it  was,  it  was  left  to  Lee  to  achieve  those  pur- 
poses in  much  more  arduous  ways  and  at  cost  of  great 
and  otherwise  needless  battles,  involving  the  loss  of 
human  lives  by  tens  of  thousands,  where  but  for  ig- 
norant interference  no  considerable  loss  at  all  would 
have  been  necessary. 


372         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

Let  us  make  this  matter  clear.  If  Jackson  had 
been  let  alone  in  the  Valley,  of  which  he  had  made 
himself  complete  master,  his  way  would  have  been 
easily  open  to  the  region  in  rear  of  Washington. 
With  the  opening  of  the  spring  of  1862  practically 
the  whole  of  Johnston's  army,  then  still  at  Manas- 
sas and  Centerville,  together  with  the  troops  at 
Richmond  reinforced  from  the  seaboard  and  the 
South,  could  have  been  pushed  by  the  valley  route 
into  Maryland,  threatening  Washington,  Baltimore, 
Philadelphia  and  the  North.  If  that  had  been  done 
McClellan  would  not  have  been  permitted  by  his  gov- 
ernment to  advance  up  the  Peninsula.  His  entire 
force  would  have  been  held  at  Washington  or  sent 
northward  and  westward  to  meet  the  Confederate 
advance.  It  would  have  been  Washington,  the  Fed- 
eral capital,  and  not  Richmond,  the  seat  of  Confeder- 
ate government,  that  was  besieged. 

But  the  interference  of  a  civilian  war  department 
spoiled  the  program  and  made  a  mess  of  the  cam- 
paign. It  resulted  in  a  siege  of  Richmond  which 
sorely  discouraged  not  only  the  Confederates  but  also 
their  friends  in  Europe  who  were  struggling  to  se- 
cure the  South's  recognition  as  an  independent  power. 
It  rendered  necessary  the  Seven  Days'  battles  pres- 
ently to  be  considered,  and  the  campaign  against 
Pope,  as  damaging  and  depleting  preliminaries  to  a 
campaign  of  aggression  which,  but  for  the  War  De- 
partment's interference,  would  have  been  undertaken 
with  the  full  force  of  the  Confederate  army,  unim- 
paired by  the  losses  of  nearly  a  dozen  battle  conflicts. 

Jackson's  services  were  fortunately  saved  to  the 


Jackson's  Valley  Campaign  373 

Confederates.  His  position  in  the  valley  was  im- 
paired by  the  order  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  which  he 
obeyed  in  spite  of  its  destructiveness,  and  the  results 
of  his  arduous  campaign  there  were  largely  sacrificed 
to  the  fetish  of  official  authority.  But  at  any  rate 
Jackson's  energy  and  genius  were  not  lost  to  the  cause 
to  which  he  was  so  ardently  devoted.  Johnston's  ap- 
peal and  a  multitude  of  others  that  poured  in  upon 
him  overcame  the  great  general's  reluctance  to  con- 
tinue longer  in  a  service  in  which  crass  ignorance  was 
permitted  to  interfere  with  and  destroy  the  results  of 
military  skill  and  heroic  endeavor. 

A  week  after  his  resignation  was  written  Jackson, 
overwhelmed  by  appeals  to  remain  in  the  service, 
wrote  to  Governor  Letcher  as  follows: 

February  6,  1862 
Governor: — Your  letter  of  the  4th  inst.  was  received 
this  morning.  If  my  retiring  from  the  army  would  produce 
the  effect  upon  our  country  that  you  have  named  in  your 
letter,  I,  of  course,  could  not  desire  to  leave  the  service,  and 
if,  upon  receipt  of  this  note,  your  opinion  remains  unchanged, 
you  are  authorized  to  withdraw  my  resignation  unless  the 
Secretary  of  War  desires  that  it  should  be  accepted.  My 
reasons  for  resigning  were  set  forth  in  my  letter  of  the 
31st  ult.  and  my  views  remain  unchanged;  and  if  the  Secre- 
tary persists  in  the  ruinous  policy  complained  of  I  feel  that 
no  officer  can  serve  his  country  better  than  by  making  his 
strongest  possible  protest  against  it,  which,  in  my  opinion, 
is  done  by  tendering  his  resignation,  rather  than  be  a  willing 
instrument  in  prosecuting  the  war  upon  a  ruinous  principle. 

This  then  was  the  situation,  Stonewall  Jackson, 
with  a  miserably  inferior  force,  was  holding  the  Val- 
ley throughout  a  long  winter,  and  detaining  there  a 


374         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

Federal  army,  which,  if  it  had  been  added  to  the  main 
Federal  force,  would  have  made  that  force  irresist- 
ible in  numbers  of  men  and  guns.  Toilsomely,  and  at 
cost  of  desperately  hard  marching  and  fighting,  he 
had  made  himself  master  of  the  strategic  position. 
He  could  now  hold  the  Valley  secure  even  with  his 
inadequate  force,  and  in  the  event  of  reinforcement  he 
could  threaten  Washington  in  ways  that  must  compel 
the  diversion  of  decisive  Federal  forces  from  the 
march  upon  Richmond.  His  strategy  had  been  mas- 
terly, his  enterprise  matchless,  and  his  achievements 
astonishing  in  their  completeness. 

Just  as  these  results  were  achieved  a  lawyer  who 
happened  to  be  Secretary  of  War,  without  any  ade- 
quate knowledge  of  the  military  situation,  without 
any  skill  in  the  art  of  war,  without  consultation  with 
Jackson  and  even  without  sending  his  orders  through 
Jackson's  commanding  officer,  Johnston,  assumed  to 
order  Jackson  to  undo  all  his  work  and  withdraw  his 
forces  from  points  of  commanding  importance  which 
had  been  won  with  difiiculty  and  at  cost  of  positively 
heroic  sacrifice. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  a  war  so  blunderingly  con- 
ducted by  ignorant  civilians  on  both  sides  was  pro- 
longed to  four  times  the  length  it  ought  properly  to 
have  endured?  Is  it  any  wonder  that  under  such  ig- 
norant direction  the  war  cost  scores  of  thousands  of 
lives  needlessly  sacrificed  by  mismanagement,  and 
hundreds  of  millions  of  needlessly  expended  treasure? 

These  details,  which  seem  at  first  glance,  to  belong 
rather  to  biography  than  to  history,  are  set  forth  here, 
precisely  as  those  touching  Grant's  restraint  from  ac- 


Jackson's  Valley  Campaign  875 

tivity  by  Halleck  and  Farragut's  embarrassment  by  a 
civilian  Navy  Department,  are  set  forth  in  other  chap- 
ters of  this  history,  because  they  serve  to  show  how 
the  war  was  conducted  on  both  sides  in  those  early 
years.  As  influences  that  caused  the  prolongation  of 
the  struggle  and  added  enormously  to  its  cost  both  in 
precious  treasure  and  in  more  precious  human  life, 
they  have  a  historical  meaning  wholly  out  of  pro- 
portion to  their  biographical  significance. 

Jackson  remained  in  command  in  the  Valley.  He 
had  a  meager  force, — usually  less  than  one  fourth  that 
of  his  adversary, — and  in  spite  of  his  activity  in  battle 
at  Kernstown,  Romney  and  the  rest — his  original 
plans  having  been  brought  to  naught  by  the  interfer- 
ence of  the  Secretary  of  War — ^he  was  slowly  beaten 
back  into  positions  that  seemed  to  make  of  the  Valley 
a  Federal  possession. 

Then  he  turned  about  and  by  one  of  the  most  bril- 
liant campaigns  of  all  the  war,  reversed  conditions, 
and  made  himself  again  master  where  he  had  seemed 
to  be  almost  hopelessly  on  the  defensive. 

In  preparation  for  that  campaign  he  earnestly 
begged  Lee  for  reinforcements — Lee  being  then  in 
general  command  of  the  Confederate  forces — and 
all  that  Lee  could  do  was  to  assign  to  his  command 
the  little  force  under  Edward  Johnson  west  of 
Staunton,  with  the  privilege  of  calling  to  his  aid  such 
troops  as  General  Ewell  had  with  him  on  the  line 
of  the  Rappahannock,  east  of  the  Blue  Ridge.  His 
own  immediate  command,  together  with  Ewell's  and 
Edward  Johnson's,  amounted  in  all  to  a  little  less  than 
17,000  men,  divided  into  three  widely  separated  col- 


376         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

umns  with  the  Blue  Ridge  and  a  whole  day's  march 
between  his  own  position  and  that  of  his  chief  lieuten- 
ant. Opposed  to  him  were  Banks  at  Harrisonburg 
with  19,000  men, — or  more  than  Jackson's  total  pos- 
sible strength — Milroy  and  Schenck  lying  to  the  west 
of  Staunton  with  6,000  men  and  Fremont  advancing 
from  West  Virginia  with  9,000  more. 

In  brief,  by  concentrating  all  his  widely  scattered 
forces,  Jackson  could  bring  to  bear  upon  his  problem 
no  more  than  17,000  men  at  the  very  most,  while  he 
stood  beleaguered  by  no  less  than  34,000,  under  gen- 
erals who  already  held  the  greater  part  of  the  valley 
and  seemed  easily  able  to  occupy  the  rest  of  it,  includ- 
ing Staunton  and  the  chief  railroad  lines,  at  will. 

When  Jackson  definitely  learned  that  he  could  have 
no  other  help  than  that  of  Ewell  and  Edward  John- 
son, he  boldly  planned  to  concentrate  his  17,000  men 
and  with  them  make  war  upon  his  34,000  adversaries. 
His  hope  lay  in  secrecy  and  celerity  of  operation.  His 
plan  was  to  bring  the  three  widely  separated  parts  of 
his  army  together  without  the  enemy's  knowledge, 
and  to  hurl  the  whole  like  a  thunderbolt  against  one 
after  another  of  his  enemy's  divisions. 

The  largest  of  those  divisions, — that  under  Banks's 
personal  command  at  Harrisonburg — outnumbered 
Jackson's  total  force  by  all  of  2,000  men,  while  the 
other  two  divisions  were  nearly  enough  equal  to  his 
own  to  make  an  assault  upon  either  of  them  perilous. 
Moreover  the  geographical  problem  was  such  that 
Jackson  could  at  no  point  bring  all  his  inferior  force 
to  bear  at  once.  He  must  always  keep  a  considerable 
part  of  it  detached  and  out  of  action,  lest  his  ad- 


Jackson's  Valley  Campaign  377 

versary  seize  upon  a  position  of  eonnmanding  import- 
ance. 

Nevertheless,  this  truly  Napoleonic  commander 
planned  a  campaign  in  which,  with  his  17,000  men,  he 
should  defend  Staunton  and  destroy  in  detail  his  ad- 
versary's double  numbers. 

Thus  began  that  campaign  whose  strategy  has  been 
called  by  a  historian  "massive  thimble-rigging,"  be- 
cause its  success  depended  upon  Jackson's  ability  to 
conceal  his  movements  and  make  sudden  appearances 
in  quite  unexpected  places. 

The  season  was  highly  unfavorable  for  rapid 
marchings.  The  roads  were  quagmires  and  the  fields 
on  either  side  of  the  highways  were  morasses.  Some- 
times it  was  impossible,  even  by  the  most  heroic  en- 
deavors, to  move  the  guns  more  than  five  miles  in  a 
day.  Rain  and  mud  offered  obstacles  immeasurably 
more  obstinate  than  hostile  battalions,  but  in  spite  of 
all,  Jackson  persisted. 

His  first  purpose  was  to  unite  the  force  under  his 
own  immediate  command  at  Swift  Run  Gap,  with 
the  troops  under  Edward  Johnson  at  West  View, 
west  of  Staunton  and  forty  miles  or  more  away.  He 
began  by  ordering  Ewell,  with  his  8,000  men,  to  cross 
the  Blue  Ridge  from  the  east,  and  occupy  Swift  Run 
Gap.  While  Ewell  was  executing  this  movement 
Jackson,  with  his  6,000  men  and  with  the  purpose 
of  deceiving  his  enemy,  moved  northward  down  the 
valley,  turned  eastward,  crossed  the  mountains  to 
their  eastern  side,  and  then  by  a  circuitous  route  made 
his  way  back  again  westward  across  the  mountains 
to  join  Edward  Johnson  west  of  Staunton.    His  pur- 


378         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

pose  in  all  this  was  to  convince  his  enemy  that  he  was 
abandoning  and  evacuating  the  Valley  and  marching 
to  join  the  Confederate  forces  defending  Richmond. 

He  accomplished  that  deception  perfectly,  and  so 
secretly  was  his  return  to  the  Valley  conducted  that 
the  pushing  of  his  column  into  Staunton  astonished 
the  Confederates  there  quite  as  much  as  it  would  have 
astonished  the  Federals  if  they  had  known  of  it,  as 
they  did  not. 

Ewell,  had  in  the  meanwhile,  crossed  the  Blue 
Ridge  and  occupied  the  position  left  by  Jackson  in 
the  Elk  Run  valley.  Unfortunately  for  Jackson,  that 
position  must  be  held  at  all  hazards,  and  so  it  was  im- 
possible for  him,  for  the  present  at  least,  to  add 
Ewell's  8,000  men  to  the  meager  forces  with  which  he 
intended  to  assail  the  Federals  farther  west. 

Thus  Jackson's  campaign  was  begun  with  only 
Edward  Johnson's  force,  numbering  a  scant  3,000 
men,  and  his  own  battalions,  amounting  to  6,000,  or 
somewhat  less.  He  had  in  all  a  force  of  about  8,500 
men  or  perhaps  a  trifle  more,  with  which  to  deal  with 
Milroy  and  Schenck,  who  had  6,000  men  at  Mc- 
Dowell, the  much  larger  forces  of  Fremont  advanc- 
ing from  the  west,  and  such  reinforcements  as  Banks 
might  choose  to  send  to  them  from  his  army  of  19,000 
men  at  Harrisonburg. 

A  glance  at  a  map  of  the  Valley  will  show  the 
reader  clearly  that  in  assailing  Milroy  and  Schenck, 
Jackson  in  fact  invited  battle  with  all  of  Fremont's 
and  Banks's  forces — in  other  words,  that  with  9,000 
men  he  risked  and  boldly  challenged  a  conflict  with 
no  less  than  34,000.    But  so  careful  and  so  masterly 


Jackson's  Valley  Campaign  379 

had  his  dispositions  been  that  the  chance  of  such  a 
concentration  against  him  amounted  to  scarcely  more 
than  zero.  For  Ewell  with  his  8,000  men  was  at  Elk 
Run,  and  Ewell  was  an  enterprising  officer,  greatly 
given  to  fighting  upon  the  smallest  provocation. 
Had  Banks  detached  any  considerable  part  of  his 
force  from  the  Harrisonburg  position  to  aid  Milroy 
and  Schenck,  Ewell  would  very  certainly  have  moved 
to  the  conquest  of  Harrisonburg,  and  the  success  of 
such  a  movement  would  have  meant  of  necessity  the 
quick  reconquering  of  the  whole  valley  by  the  Con- 
federates. 

Reckoning  upon  this  Jackson  joined  Johnson  and 
together  they  fell  upon  the  Federals  at  McDowell, 
where  a  small  but  severe  battle  ensued  on  the  eighth 
of  May,  in  which  after  four  hours  of  determined 
fighting  the  Federals  were  driven  from  the  field  and 
compelled,  during  the  succeeding  night,  to  withdraw 
from  their  position  at  McDowell,  and  fall  back,  the 
Confederates  closely  pursuing  them.  The  retreat 
lasted  for  several  days  and  was  marked  by  some  pic- 
turesque incidents. 

Schenck,  though  beaten  in  battle  and  driven  into 
retreat,  was  still  formidable  and  the  fighting  quality 
of  his  men  had  not  been  impaired.  Jackson  feared 
that  the  force  retreating  before  him  might  be  rein- 
forced from  Banks's  strong  army  at  Harrisonburg. 
In  that  case  it  would  turn  again  and  rend  him.  But 
the  reinforcements,  if  sent  at  all,  must  be  sent  through 
certain  narrow  and  heavily- wooded  defiles,  and  to 
check  their  advance  Jackson  sent  out  detachments  to 
obstruct  those  passageways  by  felling  timber  across 


380         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

them.  He  also  asked  the  aid  of  the  farmers  in  such 
work  and  right  wiUingly  they  responded. 

In  the  meanwhile  Schenck  protected  his  retreat 
from  too  close  a  pursuit  by  setting  fire  to  the  dense 
woods  and  literally  stifling  his  enemy  with  smoke. 
Jackson's  men  found  it  sometimes  impossible  to  go 
forward  without  actual  suffocation  and  so  Schenck 
gained  time  in  which  to  effect  his  retreat. 

The  destruction  of  superb  timber,  the  growth  of 
fifty  or  a  hundred  years,  which  the  operations  of  both 
the  contestants  involved,  was  only  a  small  part  of  that 
waste  which  makes  war  the  most  costly  of  all  human 
arbitraments. 

Human  lives  are  of  course  more  precious  in  many 
ways  than  forest  growths,  but  human  life  is  easily  and 
quickly  reproduced,  while  a  forest  destroyed  upon 
steep  mountain  sides  is  so  much  of  God's  good  gift  to 
man  forever  taken  away. 

Jackson  had  now  completely  accomplished  his  pur- 
pose of  driving  Schenck  back  upon  Fremont.  He 
had  no  desire  to  press  on  and  bring  about  a  battle  with 
the  united  forces  of  the  two  in  the  difficult  mountain 
country.  He  had  effectually  prevented  a  junction  of 
Fremont  or  Schenck  with  Banks's  army  at  Harrison- 
burg. He  had  prevented  the  capture  of  Staunton  by 
the  Federals,  thus  protecting  the  railroad  connections 
of  the  Confederates,  and  he  had  kept  between  thirty 
and  forty  thousand  Federal  troops  busy  in  the  Valley, 
who  might  otherwise  have  been  sent  to  reinforce 
McClellan. 

Still  more  important,  his  operations  had  compelled 
the  Federal  Government  to  stop  the  advance  of  Mc- 


Jackson's  Valley  Campaign  381 

Dowell's  army  by  way  of  Fredericksburg  and  thus  to 
deprive  McClellan,  assailing  Richmond,  of  a  rein- 
forcement which  might  have  rendered  his  assault  abso- 
lutely irresistible. 

Jackson's  next  necessity  was  to  unite  his  meager 
force  with  the  column  of  Ewell  which  was  posted  at 
Elk  Run  for  the  double  purpose  of  threatening 
Banks  at  Harrisonburg  and  standing  ready  to  march 
at  a  moment's  warning  to  the  assistance  of  the  be- 
leaguered garrison  at  Richmond.  It  was  the  grandest 
of  grand  strategy  that  Jackson  was  engaged  in,  and 
it  was  directed  by  the  masterful  genius  of  Robert  E. 
Lee,  acting  through  and  by  the  genius  of  Stonewall 
Jackson. 

Milroy  and  Schenck  had  been  dislodged  from  the 
positions  that  threatened  Staunton.  They  had  been 
driven  westward.  They  had  also  been  effectually  cut 
off  for  the  time  at  least  from  a  possible  junction  with 
Banks.  So  Jackson  decided  to  effect  the  speediest 
possible  junction  between  his  own  force  in  the  field 
and  Ewell's  command  of  8,000  men  at  Elk  Run  val- 
ley, and  with  the  force  thus  concentrated  to  assail 
Banks  at  Harrisonburg.  He  hoped  by  a  precipitate 
movement  to  defeat  Banks  before  Fremont,  whose 
plans  of  campaign  he  had  so  greatly  interfered  with, 
could  come  to  that  general's  assistance. 

But  Banks  did  not  wait  for  Jackson.  In  face  of 
the  fact  that  his  19,000  men  at  Harrisonburg  outnum- 
bered the  whole  of  Jackson's  widely  scattered  forces. 
Banks  retreated  northward  down  the  Valley  as  soon 
as  Jackson  began  his  campaign.  On  the  first  of  May 
he  evacuated   Harrisonburg   and   slowly   retired  to 


382         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

Newmarket.  There  he  lost  more  than  half  his  force 
by  the  detachment  of  Shields  with  11,000  men,  who 
moved  on  May  12,  by  way  of  Luray  and  Front  Royal 
to  join  the  force  at  Fredericksburg,  thus  emphasizing 
that  threat  to  Richmond  which  it  was  Jackson's  func- 
tion to  divert. 

So  far  Jackson's  strategy  was  unsuccessful.  He 
had  defeated  Schenck  and  Milroy.  He  had  prevented 
a  junction  of  their  forces  with  those  of  Banks;  but 
he  had  not  prevented  Banks  from  sending  11,000 
men  and  a  proportionate  number  of  guns  to  strength- 
en the  column  at  Fredericksburg  w'hich  was  intended 
to  join  McClellan  before  Richmond  and  to  render 
him  irresistible. 

From  Newmarket  Banks  continued  his  retreat 
down  the  valley — northward — ^until  he  rested  at  Stras- 
burg  and  Front  Royal. 

In  the  meanwhile  the  administration  at  Washing- 
ton, nervously  and  even  absurdly  apprehensive  as  it 
was,  plucked  up  courage  enough  to  order  McDowell, 
with  the  army  at  Fredericksburg,  reinforced  by 
Shields  with  11,000  men,  to  march  on  the  twenty- 
sixth  across  country  by  way  of  the  Riclimond  and 
Fredericksburg  railroad,  and  join  McClellan's  right 
wing  before  Richmond. 

Timidity  itself  could  not  have  hesitated  to  consent 
to  this  movement.  It  placed  an  army  of  more  than 
40,000  men  in  front  of  Washington  and  between  that 
capital  and  the  Confederate  forces  of  60,000  men  or 
less,  that  McClellan  was  already  beleaguering  at 
Richmond  with  120,000  men,  while  it  left  Banks  in 
the  Valley  with  8,000  and  the  easy  support  of  Fre- 


Jackson's  Valley  Campaign  383 

mont's  15,000  men  to  check  any  movement  that  Jack- 
son might  make  upon  Washington  with  his  force  of 
not  more  than  15,000  or  16,000. 

Yet  so  great  was  the  apprehension  felt  at  Was(h- 
ington  for  the  safety  of  that  city  that  when  the  time 
came,  Lee  played  upon  it  with  success  and  by  his  play 
upon  it  deprived  McClellan  of  reinforcements  from 
McDowell,  Banks  and  Fremont,  aggregating  nearly 
65,000  men. 

Turning  about,  after  his  pursuit  of  Schenck,  Jack- 
son quickly  formed  a  junction  of  his  own  force  witK 
EwelFs,  and  with  16,000  or  17,000  men  turned  upon 
Banks,  who  was  now  retreating  down  the  Valley 
toward  Strasburg.  He  struck  first  at  a  detachment 
at  Front  Royal  which  he  surprised  and  almost  com- 
pletely destroyed  on  the  twenty-third  of  May. 

On  the  twenty-fourth  Banks  decided  to  abandon 
Strasburg  and  retreat  to  Winchester,  destroying  his 
stores  and  such  wagons  of  his  train  as  he  could  not 
save  from  capture.  Jackson's  cavalry  destroyed  a 
multitude  more  of  them  on  march,  throwing  the  Fed- 
eral trains  into  the  utmost  confusion.  Jackson  now 
had  a  much  stronger  force  than  Banks — about  three 
men  indeed  to  Banks's  one. 

With  his  vastly  superior  force  Jackson  set  out  to 
obey  his  orders,  which  were  to  "clear  the  valley  and 
threaten  Washington,"  so  as  to  compel  the  diversion 
of  McDowell's  army  from  McClellan's  reinforcement 
before  Richmond. 

The  task  was  an  inviting  one  and  Jackson  accom- 
gplished  it  promptly.  Marching  tirelessly,  by  night  as 
well  as  by  day,  he  quickly  drove  Banks  from  Stras- 


384         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

burg  to  Middletown  and  from  Middletown  to  Win- 
chester. At  Winchester  he  broke  Banks's  force  into 
bits  in  a  hotly  contested  battle,  and  having  cut  off  the 
Federal  general's  retreat  to  Harper's  Ferry,  sent  him 
flying  in  confusion  by  way  of  Martinsburg  to  Wil- 
liamsport  on  the  upper  Potomac.  Banks  fought 
stubbornly  against  such  odds  as  no  commander  could 
hope  to  overcome,  but  finding  himself  beaten  and  his 
columns  disintegrated  he  skilfully  retreated  over  the 
space  of  thirty- four  miles  in  a  single  day,  and  success- 
fully placed  himself  behind  the  Potomac  where  his 
force  could  threaten  Jackson's  flank,  if  the  great  Con- 
federate should  move  upon  Washington  by  way  of 
Harper's  Ferry. 

Apart  from  its  brilliant  incidents  which  cannot  be 
here  related  in  detail  Jackson's  Valley  campaign  had 
thus  far  completely  accomplished  its  strategic  pur- 
pose. It  had  detained  Fremont  and  Schenck  with 
15,000  men  in  the  mountains  when  McClellan  needed 
them  before  Richmond.  It  had  kept  Banks  busy  and 
finally  had  driven  him  out  of  the  Valley  and  into  a 
position  from  which  he  could  render  no  assistance  to 
the  Federal  armies  anywhere.  Finally  it  had  so 
greatly  alarmed  the  authorities  at  Washington  that 
they  completely  diverted  McDowell's  40,000  men 
from  McClellan's  reinforcement,  sending  the  major 
part  of  that  force  upon  the  fruitless  errand  of  de- 
stroying Jackson  and  employing  the  rest  of  it  in  the 
direct  defense  of  Washington. 

All  this  was  precisely  what  Robert  E.  Lee  had 
planned  and  intended,  and  it  was  perfectly  accom- 
plished.   If  larger  space  is  here  given  to  an  account 


Jackson's  Valley  Campaign  385 

of  this  campaign  than  the  size  and  direct  importance 
of  its  battles  would  seem  to  justify,  it  is  because  of 
the  tremendous  strategic  consequences  of  the  opera- 
tions involved.  Jackson's  activity  made  possible  not 
only  Lee's  superb  campaign  of  dislodgment  against 
McClellan,  but  all  the  stupendous  campaigning  that 
followed,  including  the  overthrow  of  Pope  at  Ma- 
nassas, the  invasion  of  Maryland,  the  battle  of 
Antietam,  the  Fredericksburg  battle  and  the  later 
Chancellorsville  and  Gettysburg. 

The  story  of  all  that  will  follow  in  later  chapters. 
In  the  meanwhile,  it  is  pleasant  to  record  here  one 
step  forward  in  civilization  which  was  made  during 
this  campaign  and  the  author  of  which,  Dr.  Hunter 
McGuire,  deserves  remembrance  for  his  humanity. 
Until  that  time,  and  indeed  for  long  afterwards,  sur- 
geons in  charge  of  hospitals  full  of  wounded  men, 
upon  falling  into  the  enemy's  hands,  were  treated  as 
prisoners  of  war.  After  every  battle,  therefore,  the 
surgeons  of  a  retiring  army,  in  charge  of  wounded 
men  from  both  sides,  must  make  a  hard  choice.  They 
must  either  abandon  their  patients — ^many  of  whom 
were  in  desperate  need  of  immediate  surgical  atten- 
tion, or  they  must  submit  themselves  to  the  rigors  and 
sufferings  of  a  military  imprisonment,  precisely  as 
if  they  had  been  taken  in  battle.  As  a  result  of  this 
peculiar  barbarism  of  war  the  wounded — by  the  flight 
of  their  surgeons — were  often  left  unattended  at  the 
critical  moment  that  meant  to  them  the  difference  be- 
tween life  and  death.  Many  precious  lives  were  need- 
lessly sacrificed  to  this  barbaric  military  practice. 

At  the  battle  of  Winchester  Jackson  captured  all 

1-25 


386  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

the  Federal  surgeons  in  charge  of  the  field  hospitals 
there,  but  instead  of  sending  them  to  Belle  Isle  or 
Andersonville  or  Libby  Prison,  he  acted  upon  the  sug- 
gestion of  his  medical  director.  Dr.  Hunter  McGuire, 
and  released  the  doctors  unconditionally  upon  the 
rational  and  humane  ground  that  surgeons  do  not 
make  war,  and  ought  not  to  be  subjected  to  war's 
pains  and  penalties,  and  upon  the  still  more  rational 
and  humane  ground  that  it  is  needful  for  the  care  of 
the  wounded  on  both  sides  that  surgeons  shall  be  per- 
mitted to  remain  at  their  posts  until  surgeons  on  the 
other  side  can  replace  them,  regardless  of  army  move- 
ments and  without  fear  of  being  sent  to  a  loathsome 
prison  as  a  punishment  for  their  faithfulness  to  their 
merciful  duty. 

This  step  forward  in  the  amelioration  of  war's  hor- 
rors was  not  generally  followed  up  until  two  years 
later  when,  during  the  tremendous  struggle  of  1864, 
General  Lee  and  General  Grant,  acting  upon  their 
own  humane  impulses  and  with  no  authority  except 
the  confidence  of  each  that  his  acts  would  be  approved, 
agreed  that  surgeons  in  charge  of  wounded  men 
should  not  be  made  prisoners  of  war,  but  should  be 
subject  only  to  such  temporary  detention  as  might  be 
necessary  to  prevent  them  from  carrying  tidings  of 
strategic  importance  across  the  lines. 

It  was  Dr.  Hunter  McGuire  who  first  offered  this 
suggestion  in  behalf  of  humanity,  and  it  was  Stone- 
wall Jackson  who  first  took  the  responsibility  of  act- 
ing upon  it.  To  their  memory  history  should  accord 
honor  for  it. 

Jackson's  Valley  campaign  had  completely  accom- 


Jackson's  Valley  Campaign  387 

plished  its  chief  purpose.  It  had  thrown  the  War 
Department  at  Washington  into  a  panic  which  is  re- 
flected in  the  dispatches  of  President  Lincoln  and 
Secretary  Stanton  sent  about  that  time.  Neither 
McClellan  nor  McDowell  regarded  the  situation  in 
any  such  serious  light  as  that  in  which  it  was  viewed 
by  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Stanton.  McClellan  and 
McDowell  were  trained  and  educated  soldiers,  Mr. 
Lincoln  and  Mr.  Stanton  were  civilians.  The  two 
soldiers  perfectly  understood  that  while  Jackson  had 
driven  Fremont  back  into  the  West  Virginia  moun- 
tains and  had  chased  Banks  to  and  across  the  Poto- 
mac, he  could  not  with  his  meager  force — now  reduced 
to  less  than  15,000  men — sanely  cross  into  Maryland 
or  without  madness  undertake  a  serious  campaign 
against  Washington.  They  knew  Jackson  to  be  a 
perfectly  sane  man,  and  hence  they  did  not  expect 
him  to  undertake  either  of  those  crazy  operations. 
They  were  agreed  in  thinking  that  the  proper  course 
was  for  McDowell  to  push  on  to  Richmond  and  join 
McClellan  there  before  Jackson  could  add  his  force 
to  Lee's. 

If  they  had  been  permitted  to  do  this,  McClellan's 
force  before  the  Confederate  capital  would  have  been 
sufficient,  within  three  or  four  days,  to  overpower  all 
conceivable  opposition  and  to  capture  Richmond. 

But  Lee  knew  how  almost  insanely  the  administra- 
tion at  Washington  dreaded  every  threat  against  that 
city  or  the  country  north  of  it,  and  he  had  success- 
fully counted  upon  that  absurd  nervousness  to  enable 
Jackson,  with  16,000  or  17,000  men,  to  neutralize 
McDowell's  army  of  40,000  in  the  great  game  then 


388         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

being  played  for  the  possession  of  Richmond.  He 
had  made  a  zero  of  Fremont  and  Schenck  in  the  prob- 
lem. He  had  converted  Banks's  army  into  a  Potomac 
river-picket  guard,  and  he  had  compelled  McDoweU's 
40,000  men  to  remain  inactive  as  a  garrison  defending 
.Washington. 

Never  in  all  the  war  was  so  small  a  force  as  Jack- 
son's made  to  neutralize  so  large  a  force.  By  the 
simple  virtue  of  Lee's  masterful  strategy  and  Jack- 
son's extraordinary  capacity  in  execution,  17,000  men 
occupied  65,000  and  kept  them  completely  out  of  the 
decisive  struggle.  And  as  if  to  add  emphasis  to 
the  situation,  the  17,000  who  had  thus  paralyzed  three 
or  four  times  their  number,  were  themselves  brought 
upon  the  field  before  Richmond  in  time  to  play  their 
full  part  in  the  critical  and  decisive  actions  from  which 
their  previous  activity  had  excluded  so  great  a  num*- 
ber  of  their  opponents. 

But  the  story  of  the  Valley  campaign  is  not  yet 
fully  told.  Having  driven  Fremont  back  into  West 
Virginia  and  Banks  beyond  the  Potomac  at  Williams- 
port,  Jackson  was  ordered  by  Lee  to  make  a  demon- 
stration threatening  an  invasion  of  Maryland  and 
seeming  to  threaten  an  assault  upon  Washington,  by 
way  of  still  further  disarranging  the  Federal  plans 
and  diverting  Federal  forces  from  the  assault  upon 
Richmond. 

Jackson  moved  at  once  upon  Harper's  Ferry  and 
for  a  time  seemed  not  only  determined  but  quite  easily 
able  to  cross  the  Potomac  there  and  push  forward  into 
Maryland  and  Pennsylvania  or  to  sweep  with  enthu- 
siastic fury  upon  Washington  itself. 


Jackson's  Valley  Campaign  389 

THe  result  was  what  Lee  had  planned  that  it  should 
be.  Fremont,  whose  force  ought  to  have  been  moved 
to  McClellan's  reinforcement,  was  ordered  to  ad- 
vance from  the  fastnesses  of  the  West  Virginia 
mountains  into  the  Valley,  there  to  assail  Jackson. 
Banks,  driven  to  cover  at  Williamsport  on  the  Poto- 
mac above  Harper's  Ferry,  was  ordered  to  hold  the 
crossings  there  against  a  possible  advance  of  Jackson 
by  that  route  and  presently  to  return  to  the  Valley  and 
assail  Jackson.  Saxton,  with  7,000  or  8,000  men, 
withdrawn  from  McDowell's  army,  was  sent  to  hold 
the  heights  about  Harper's  Ferry  and  at  the  proper 
time  to  advance.  McDowell's  carefully  planned 
march  upon  Richmond  was  suspended  and  the  greater 
part  of  his  force  was  ordered  to  the  Valley.  The 
purpose  was  by  concurrent  action  on  the  part  of  Fre- 
mont moving  from  West  Virginia,  Banks  moving 
back  up  the  Valley  from  Williamsport,  Saxton's  ad- 
vancing from  the  neighborhood  of  Harper's  Ferry, 
and  McDowell's  strong  column  crossing  the  Blue 
Ridge  from  Fredericksburg,  completely  to  surround, 
overwhelm  and  destroy  Jackson,  whose  total  force 
was  now  reduced  to  a  scant  15,000,  while  the  forces 
thus  set  to  the  task  of  making  an  end  of  him,  aggre- 
gated not  less  than  55,000  or  60,000  men.  It  was  his 
task,  with  15,000  men  not  only  to  meet  and  destroy 
these  forces  in  detail,  so  far  as  that  might  be  done,  but 
in  any  case  to  escape  from  the  trap  set  for  him  and 
unite  his  army  with  that  of  Lee  before  Richmond  in 
time  to  lend  his  enthusiasm  and  his  strength  to  that 
assault  upon  McClellan  which  was  planned  for  the 
immediate  future. 


390         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

If  the  reader  will  look  at  a  map  he  will  see  al- 
most at  a  glance  how  perilous  a  problem  Jackson  had 
to  solve.  With  less  than  15,000  men  he  was  threaten- 
ing Harper's  Ferry  and  the  strongholds  round  about, 
held  by  Saxton  with  7,000  men  and  eighteen  pieces  of 
artillery.  Banks  with  about  9,000  men  was  now  ad- 
vancing from  Williamsport  to  assail  him  in  jflank  and 
rear,  and  cut  oflF  his  retreat.  Fremont  with  10,000  or 
15,000  men  was  advancing  from  West  Virginia  and 
had  by  telegraph  promised  Mr.  Lincoln  that  he  would 
be  in  Strasburg — seventeen  miles  south  of  Winches- 
ter and  commanding  Jackson's  route  of  retreat — on 
Saturday,  May  31.  In  the  meanwhile  Shields,  com- 
manding 20,000  men  from  McDowell's  army  and  fol- 
lowed by  McDowell  himself  with  the  rest  of  it,  was 
hurrying  from  Fredericksburg  into  the  Valley  and 
was  due  at  Strasburg  by  noon  of  the  thirty-first. 

In  other  words  four  armies,  numbering  in  the  ag- 
gregate more  than  50,000  men,  were  threatening  to 
envelop  and  overwhelm  Jackson.  Of  these  forces  no 
less  than  35,000  men  were  rapidly  concentrating  in 
Jackson's  rear  upon  the  lines  over  which  he  must 
march  in  order  to  escape  from  the  trap  set  for  him 
and  add  his  force  to  Lee's  in  time  for  the  impending 
battle  before  Richmond. 

It  was  Jackson's  problem  not  only  to  escape  from 
these  forces,  rapidly  concentrating  to  destroy  him,  but 
so  far  to  defeat  them  in  detail  with  his  little  army  as 
to  keep  them  where  they  were,  while  moving  his  own 
army  to  Lee's  assistance. 

This  required  grand  strategy  on  a  grand  scale,  and 
Jackson  responded  to  the  demand  with  a  brilliancy 


Jackson's  Valley  Campaign  891 

wholly  unmatched  in  any  other  operation  of  the  war. 
Putting  aside  details  that  would  only  serve  to  eon- 
fuse  the  reader's  mind,  let  us  tell  in  outline  the  story 
of  what  the  great  commander  of  the  "foot  cavalry'* 
did  in  this  complex  emergency. 

First  of  all,  he  withdrew  his  troops  hurriedly  from 
the  neighborhood  of  Harper's  Ferry  to  Winchester. 
When  he  got  there  he  found  that  McDowell's  force 
was  in  possession  of  Front  Royal,  only  twelve  miles 
from  Strasburg,  and  Fremont  was  at  Wardensville, 
only  twenty  miles  away,  while  the  head  of  his  own 
column  was  eighteen  miles  distant  from  the  crucial 
point,  and  its  rear  forty-three  miles  away.  A  large 
part  of  his  force  was  footsore  and  exhausted  after 
a  hurried  march  of  twenty-five  miles  in  a  single 
day,  with  frequent  skirmishings  to  punctuate  their 
progress. 

Nevertheless  Jackson  determined  to  reach  and  oc- 
cupy Strasburg  before  his  enemies  could  get  there. 
He  had  eighteen  miles  to  go  while  one  of  the  enemy's 
columns  had  twenty  and  the  other  only  twelve  to 
travel.  Their  combined  forces  outnumbered  his  own 
about  three  to  one,  to  say  nothing  of  the  15,000  men 
of  Banks  and  Saxton  who  had  been  pressing  his  rear 
all  day.  But  he  believed  it  possible  for  him,  reckon- 
ing upon  the  extraordinary  marching  qualities  of  his 
men,  to  reach  Strasburg  before  the  enemy's  columns 
could  concentrate  there.  If  he  could  do  that  he 
counted  upon  the  superb  fighting  spirit  of  his  men  to 
overcome  the  enemy's  three  detachments  by  striking 
them  separately  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  one  of  those 
detachments  outnumbered  him  by  thirty-three  per 


892         History  of^  the  Confederate  War 

cent  while  each  of  the  others  nearly  or  quite  equaled 
him  in  numbers. 

He  acted  instantly.  His  march  was  incumbered  by 
2,300  Federal  prisoners  and  an  embarrassingly  large 
train  consisting  in  its  major  part  of  wagons  loaded 
with  precious  stores  which  he  had  captured  from  the 
enemy.  But  in  spite  of  all  he  marched  all  the  way  to 
Strasburg  on  the  31st  of  May,  while  his  rear  guard 
succeeded  in  passing  well  beyond  Winchester,  some 
parts  of  it  having  covered  thirty-five  miles  since  the 
morning.  The  Federals  pursuing  under  Saxton  had 
stopped  at  Charlestown,  their  commander  afterwards 
reporting  that  their  exhaustion  was  such  as  to  forbid 
a  further  advance. 

Having  thus  eluded  his  pursuers.  Banks  and  Sax- 
ton,  Jackson  pushed  his  foot  cavalry  into  Strasburg 
in  advance  of  both  Fremont  and  Shields,  though  each 
of  them  had  had  a  much  shorter  Hne  of  march  than 
his  own  in  order  to  reach  that  place.  He  had  shaken 
off  Banks  and  Saxton  for  a  time  at  least,  but  he  had 
pushed  his  small  force  in  between  Fremont's  equal 
army  on  the  one  hand  and  Shields's  superior  one, 
which  was  now  supported  by  additional  troops  under 
'McDowell's  own  command,  on  the  other.  His  prob- 
lem was  to  prevent  the  junction  of  these  two  armies 
sent  to  crush  him,  to  escape  them  and— if  possible— to 
defeat  them  separately.  One  of  these  armies  out- 
numbered his  own  in  the  proportion  of  four  men  to 
three  while  the  other  equaled  his  force.  But  if  he 
could  keep  them  separated  and  attack  them  in  posi- 
tions of  his  own  choosing,  where  they  could  not  both 
fight  him  at  once,  he  did  not  despair  of  beating  them. 


Jackson's  Valley  Campaign  398 

McDowell,  reckoning  upon  the  easy  superiority  ofi 
his  force,  sent  detachments  hither  and  yon,  to  "head 
off"  Jackson,  and  prevent  his  escape,  that  seeming 
now  to  be  the  only  thing  to  be  done  with  a  fleeing 
general  whose  army  was  beset  on  every  side,  outnum- 
bered, and  hopelessly  entangled. 

In  execution  of  these  orders  a  whole  day  was 
wasted  by  Shields,  through  mistakes  as  to  routes,  and 
Jackson  slipped  out  of  Strasburg  on  his  way  to  Har- 
risonburg, Cross  Keys  and  Port  Republic,  points  at 
■which  he  planned  to  turn  upon  his  enemy  and  fight 
him  in  detail. 

By  the  burning  of  bridges  and  the  adroit  disposi- 
tion of  troops  in  a  region  broken  by  mountain  ranges 
and  laced  by  streams  at  that  time  of  year  unfordable, 
Jackson  managed  to  keep  the  divisions  of  his  adver- 
sary separated  as  they  severally  pursued  his  retreat, 
intent  upon  capturing  or  destroying  him. 

So  greatly  overwhelming  were  the  Federal  num- 
bers that  General  Shields  urgently  protested  to  Gen- 
eral McDowell  against  the  sending  of  any  more  men 
to  his  assistance.  Says  General  McDowell  in  an  offi- 
cial utterance : 

He  [Shields]  had  been  in  that  country  before  and  his 
command  had  suffered  somewhat.  He  wrote  me  a  letter 
stating  his  apprehensions,  saying  that  if  troops  instead  of 
supplies  kept  coming  over,  the  troops  would  starve,  and 
asking  why  I  should  bring  so  many  there;  that  he  had 
enough  men  to  clear  the  Valley  out  and  for  God's  sake  not  to 
send  him  any  more  men. 

McDowell  reassured  Shields  as  to  the  abundance 
of  supplies  and  that  commander,  with  his  superabun- 


394  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

dance  of  men,  cheerfully  undertook  the  task  of  "clear- 
ing out  the  Valley"  which  seemed  to  him  easy.  He 
had  not  adequately  reckoned  upon  the  genius  ofi 
Stonewall  Jackson — that  was  all. 

The  "foot  cavalry"  had  now  retreated  with  splen- 
did success,  as  far  as  Jackson  intended  that  they 
should.  He  was  pursued  by  the  two  armies,  but  he 
had  succeeded  in  keeping  them  separated  by  an  un- 
fordable  river,  while  divesting  himself  of  his  em- 
barrassing supply  train  and  his  still  more  embarrass- 
ing company  of  Federal  prisoners.  These,  together 
with  his  own  sick  and  wounded,  he  had  sent  under 
escort  to  Staunton. 

Thus,  stripped  for  action,  he  turned  upon  his  pur- 
suers to  rend  them.  Fremont's  force  and  that  under 
Shields  were  separated  by  a  river.  Jackson  had  de- 
stroyed every  bridge  that  crossed  that  stream  except 
the  one  at  Port  Republic,  which  he  securely  held  for 
his  own  use  in  the  contemplated  operations.  He  had 
about  13,000  men  of  all  arms  available  for  battle  uses. 
Fremont,  who  was  hotly  pursuing  him,  had  about 
11,500,  while  Shields's  force — weakened  by  detach- 
ments— ^marching  down  the  other  side  of  the  river, 
was  much  smaller,  not  over  three  or  four  thousand 
effectives.    Exact  figures  are  unattainable. 

Jackson  had  effectually  prevented  the  union  of 
these  two  armies.  He  decided  to  fight  them  now,  one 
at  a  time. 

On  the  eighth  of  June,  at  Cross  Keys,  a  few  miles 
north  of  Port  Republic,  he  turned  upon  Fremont. 
He  was  forced  to  reduce  his  firing  line  heavily  by  de- 
taching a  part  of  his  little  army  to  hold  Shields  in 


Jackson's  Valley  Campaign  395 

check  on  the  other  side  of  the  river,  and  another  part 
to  hold  Port  Republic  and  the  bridge  which  con- 
stituted his  communication.  He  posted  the  remainder 
of  his  troops  in  a  position  of  his  own  choosing  and 
there  awaited  Fremont's  attack. 

That  attack  was  made  on  the  eighth  of  June  and 
was  repulsed  with  so  much  ease  and  so  much  com- 
pleteness, that  Jackson  at  once  decided  to  assail  his 
other  adversary.  Shields,  in  the  hope  of  defeating  him 
in  his  turn.  Leaving  a  sufficient  force  on  Fremont's 
side  of  the  river  to  hold  that  general  in  check,  or,  if 
need  be  to  destroy  the  bridge  and  prevent  his  crossing, 
he  withdrew  his  battalions  and  precipitately  assailed 
Shields,  falling  upon  him  in  Napoleonic  fashion  with 
the  head  of  his  own  column  and  trusting  to  expedi- 
tious marching  for  the  coming  up  of  reinforcements 
in  time  to  prevent  a  possible  failure  from  maturing 
into  a  disaster. 

Shields  resisted  so  vahantly  and  so  stubbornly  that 
Jackson's  advance  corps  was  very  nearly  overthrown, 
but  in  the  end  the  Confederate  commander  brought 
a  superior  force  to  bear  and  completely  crushed 
Shields's  defense. 

Immediately  Fremont  and  Shields  gave  up  the 
contest  and  retreated  northward  down  the  Valley, 
while  Jackson  rested  his  army  preparatory  to  a  hur- 
ried march  to  join  Lee  before  Richmond  while  the 
fear  of  him  should  continue  to  hold  Fremont's  and 
McDowell's  and  Banks's,  and  what  had  been  Sax- 
ton's,  forces  in  the  Valley. 

For  that  march  and  junction  Lee  had  fully  pre- 
pared.   He  secretly  sent  instructions  to  Jackson  to 


396         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

march  at  once  to  Ashland,  a  dozen  miles  from  Rich- 
mond, and  thence  sweep  down  between  the  Pamunkey 
and  Chickahominy  rivers,  in  aid  of  Lee's  own  move- 
ment against  McClellan.  Then  he  ordered  two  divi- 
sions ostentatiously  detached  from  the  army  before 
Richmond,  to  go  to  Jackson's  reinforcement  in  the 
Valley,  and  directed  Jackson  to  do  all  he  could  to 
impress  the  enemy  with  the  belief  that  he  was  plan- 
ning, with  a  strongly  reinforced  army,  to  sweep  down 
the  Valley  again  and  press  on  into  Maryland,  threat- 
ening Washington  and  Baltimore.  Pains  were  taken 
to  impress  the  fact  of  Jackson's  strong  reinforcement 
upon  Federal  officers  who,  as  prisoners,  were  about  to 
be  paroled  and  sent  north  and  they  carried  the  news, 
as  it  was  meant  that  they  should  do.  The  deception 
was  so  complete  that  even  while  Jackson  was  actively 
assailing  McClellan's  rear  on  the  Chickahominy  a 
few  days  later.  General  Banks  was  sending  from  the 
Valley  dispatches  warning  the  Washington  authori- 
ties that  Stonewall  Jackson  was  preparing  immedi- 
ately to  sweep  down  the  Valley  at  the  head  of  a 
reinforced  and  now  quite  irresistible  army. 

The  result  was  that  Jackson  and  the  divisions  sent 
ostensibly  to  reinforce  him,  joined  Lee  in  front  of 
Richmond  in  time  to  aid  in  the  Seven  Days'  battles 
for  McClellan's  dislodgment. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 
The  Seven  Days^  Battles 

It  was  explained  in  the  last  chapter  that  Lee's  first 
object  when  he  took  personal  charge  of  the  army  de- 
fending Richmond  was  to  raise  McClellan's  siege  of 
the  Confederate  capital,  drive  him  away,  and  trans- 
fer the  scene  of  active  operations  to  some  more  dis- 
tant field. 

To  that  end,  first  of  all,  he  had  strengthened  the 
army  at  Richmond  by  calling  to  it  every  man  that 
could  be  spared  from  coast  defense  and  from  the 
regions  farther  south.  Next  he  had  set  Jackson  at 
work  in  the  Valley,  to  occupy  the  forces  there  and  in 
West  Virginia,  and  by  threatening  Washington  to 
divert  from  McClellan's  reinforcement  an  additional 
army  of  40,000  men  which  had  been  intended  to 
strengthen  him  into  irresistibility. 

When  Jackson,  beset  by  four  armies,  had  escaped 
from  two  of  them  and  had  defeated  the  other  two, 
Lee  sent  strong  reinforcements  to  him  in  a  conspicu- 
ous way,  so  that  he  might  seem  about  to  advance  down 
the  Valley,  cross  the  Potomac  and  in  strong  force 
occupy  the  region  north  of  the  Potomac  and  threaten 
the  capture  of  Washington  itself. 

By  this  strategy  Lee  had  managed  to  detain  65,000 
Federals  in  the  Valley,  and  20,000  or  30,000  more  in 
and  around  Washington,  whose  fighting  force  must 

397 


398         History  of^  the  Confederate  War 

otherwise  have  been  added  to  McClellan's  already 
superior  army  before  Richmond.  Then  he  had  man- 
aged to  have  Jackson  suddenly  and  secretly  quit  the 
Valley,  with  the  force  that  had  there  achieved  such 
spectacular  results,  together  with  the  troops  that  had 
been  ostensibly  sent  to  reinforce  him  for  an  aggres- 
sive campaign  and  by  a  rapid  movement  to  join  the 
army  at  Richmond  and  assist  it  in  a  supreme  en- 
deavor to  dislodge  McClellan. 

The  situation  then  was  this :  Relying  upon  a  rein- 
forcement of  40,000  men  under  McDowell,  Mc- 
Clellan had  dangerously  divided  his  army,  keeping 
about  half  of  it  north  and  about  half  of  it  south  of 
the  Chickahominy  river.  His  desire  was  to  press  for- 
ward his  siege  operations  on  the  east  of  the  Confeder- 
ate capital  and  at  the  same  time  to  maintain  a  threat- 
ening force  north  of  the  city.  It  was  his  purpose  so 
soon  as  McDowell  should  add  his  40,000  men  to  this 
army  on  the  north,  to  sweep  forward  with  the  com- 
bined forces  and  irresistibly  to  push  a  conquering 
column  into  Richmond. 

But  Lee  had  baffled  all  these  plans  by  his  masterful 
strategy.  He  had  compelled  the  diversion  of  McDow- 
ell to  the  Valley,  and  while  the  authorities  at  Washing- 
ton were  nervously  expecting  Jackson  to  swoop  down 
upon  that  city,  Jackson  with  his  whole  force,  which 
had  slipped  out  of  the  Valley,  suddenly  appeared  at 
Ashland,  about  a  dozen  miles  northwest  of  Richmond 
and  immediately  upon  McClellan's  right  flank. 

In  the  meanwhile  Lee  had  sent  Stuart — perhaps  the 
most  daring  and  enterprising  of  the  Southern  cavalry 
leaders— with  a  body  of  1,200  or  1,500  horsemen  and 


The  Seven  Days"  Battles  399 

two  guns,  to  the  rear  of  MeClellan's  position,  there  to 
find  out  the  disposition  of  troops,  the  condition  of  the 
roads  and  bridges,  and  whatever  else  might  open  the 
way  to  that  gigantic  operation  of  offensive  defense 
which  Lee  intended  presently  to  undertake. 

Stuart  moved  promptly  into  MeClellan's  rear  and 
swept  around  it  like  a  whirlwind.  Finding  that  a 
tardy  resistance  was  taking  the  form  of  an  organized 
effort  to  cut  off  his  retreat  by  the  route  over  which 
he  had  come,  the  gaily  enterprising  cavalier  of  the 
South,  instead  of  turning  back  and  trying  to  retrace 
his  steps  as  his  enemy  expected  him  to  do,  decided  to 
ride  on  all  the  way  around  MeClellan's  army  and 
thus  spectacularly  to  emphasize  the  imperfection  of 
MeClellan's  precaution  for  the  protection  of  that  rear 
which  Lee  was  planning  presently  to  assail  tempestu- 
ously. He  rode  completely  around  McClellan,  cross- 
ing his  line  of  communications,  rebuilding  a  bridge 
which  had  been  destroyed  for  the  purpose  of  cutting 
him  off  and  entrapping  him,  and  returning  to  Rich- 
mond with  a  loss  so  small  as  to  be  scarcely  worthy  of 
mention  in  an  official  report. 

This  raid  was  made  on  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
of  June,  and  equipped  with  the  detailed  information 
secured  by  it  Lee  planned  to  assail  McClellan  on  the 
twenty-sixth  of  June  with  a  force  sufficient  to  dis- 
lodge him  from  his  besieging  positions,  to  break  his 
line  of  conmiunication  and  supply  by  way  of  the 
White  House  on  the  York  river,  and  to  compel  his 
retreat  from  the  front  of  the  Confederate  capital  to 
some  point  on  the  James  river,  where  his  gunboats 
could  afford  him  needed  protection. 


400         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

For  the  purposes  of  this  operation  Lee  had  a  force 
somewhat  inferior  in  men  and  guns  to  MeClellan's, 
but  not  greatly  inferior.  On  the  other  hand  Me- 
Clellan's army  was  badly  placed,  with  half  of  it  on 
the  north  and  half  of  it  on  the  south  of  the  Chicka- 
hominy,  neither  half  being  within  easy  supporting  dis- 
tance of  the  other,  while  the  line  of  communication 
and  supply  by  way  of  the  White  House  was  peculiar- 
ly vulnerable  in  case  of  an  attack  from  the  rear. 

Reckoning  upon  these  advantages,  it  was  Lee's 
plan  to  have  Jackson  move  down  from  Ashland,  assail 
MeClellan's  right  wing  in  flank  and  rear,  drive  back 
his  forces  and  thus  open  the  crossings  of  the  river  to 
the  other  Confederate  corps,  which  were  to  cross  one 
after  the  other  and  assail  the  enemy  in  front  while 
Jackson  should  attack  him  in  rear  and  flank. 

The  plan  miscarried  in  part.  For  once  Jackson 
was  not  on  time,  and,  after  waiting  for  him  until  the 
afternoon  of  the  twenty-seventh  of  June  A.  P.  Hill 
grew  impatient  of  the  delay,  and  pushed  his  corps 
across  the  river  at  Meadow  Bridge  and,  after  a  strenu- 
ous fight,  drove  the  Federals  out  of  Mechanicsville, 
without  any  help  from  Jackson.  Longstreet  and  D. 
H.  Hill  at  the  lower  crossings  also  grew  impatient  of 
delay,  and  without  waiting  for  orders  crossed  and  en- 
gaged the  enemy.  On  the  next  morning  Jackson  was 
with  them  and  he  led  the  advance. 

The  plan  of  battle  was  that  Jackson,  with  D.  H. 
Hill  for  support,  and  keeping  well  in  rear  of  Me- 
Clellan's fortified  positions,  should  push  rapidly  for- 
ward towards  the  York-river  railroad,  which  consti- 
tuted MeClellan's  sole  line  of  communication  and 


The  Seven  Days"  Battles  401 

supply,  while  A.  P.  Hill  and  Longstreet,  advancing 
upon  Jackson's  right,  should  attack  McClellan  in 
flank,  front  and  rear  whenever  he  might  seriously; 
oppose  Jackson's  movement. 

There  was  some  further  miscarriage  of  plans,  and 
in  consequence  of  a  delay  in  Jackson's  advance  Long- 
street  and  Hill  fell  upon  the  right  wing  of  Mc- 
Clellan's  army  posted  in  a  strong  strategic  position 
at  Gaines's  Mills  before  the  advance  under  Jackson 
was  ready  to  strike  its  blow. 

The  Confederates  here  encountered  a  yery  obstinate 
resistance  and  they  were  not  able  to  force  the  posi- 
tion until  Jackson  came  up  and  joined  in  the  assault. 
It  was  a  critical  moment  of  the  war.  Had  Mc- 
Clellan been  able  to  hold  this  position  the  Confederate 
campaign  of  offense  must  have  completely  collapsed, 
and  with  a  superior  force,  the  Federal  general  would 
have  been  free  to  conquer  Richmond  at  that  leisure 
which  his  engineering  soul  so  greatly  loved. 

But  with  Jackson's  force  added  to  the  commands  of\ 
Longstreet  and  Hill,  the  Confederates,  after  a  very 
determined  and  bloody  contest,  drove  the  Federals 
from  their  position  and  made  themselves  prospective 
masters  of  McClellan's  sole  line  of  communication 
with  his  only  depot  of  supplies  at  the  White  House. 

There  was  nothing  now  for  McClellan  to  do  but 
retreat  as  best  he  could  to  the  James  river  at  Harri- 
son's Landing  and  make  that,  instead  of  the  White 
House,  a  base  of  supplies.  To  do  that  was  exceed- 
ingly difficult,  as  McClellan  had  open  to  him  only  one 
road  and  that  a  very  bad  one,  while  the  Confederates 
on  his  flank  had  many  roads  by  which  to  intercept  and 
annoy  his  retreat. 

1-26 


402  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

During  the  course  of  that  retreat,  which  was  at- 
tended at  every  step  by  bloody  contests,  McClellan 
wrote  in  great  bitterness  of  spirit  to  the  Secretary  of 
War  in  Washington  (Mr.  Stanton)  on  the  twenty- 
eighth  of  June:  "If  I  save  this  army  now,  I  tell  you 
plainly  that  I  owe  no  thanks  to  you  or  to  any  other 
persons  in  Washington  [obviously  meaning  Mr.  Lin- 
coln]. You  have  done  your  best  to  sacrifice  this 
army." 

McClellan,  with  an  overwhelmingly  superior  force, 
had  invested  Richmond  on  the  east  and  north.  There 
he  had  strongly  fortified  himself.  He  had  pushed  his 
advance  to  within  four  miles  of  the  Confederate  capi- 
tal. He  had  brought  up  tremendous  siege  guns  and 
had  apparently  made  himself  complete  master  of  the 
situation.  Then  Jackson,  the  two  Hills,  Longstreet 
and  Ewell,  under  direction  of  Robert  E.  Lee,  had 
fallen  upon  his  flank  and  rear  and  had  driven  him  out 
of  one  position  after  another  with  fearful  slaughter, 
until  his  White  House  communication  was  cut  off, 
and  nothing  remained  to  him  but  retreat  to  a  new  base 
on  James  river.  The  Confederates  confidently  cal- 
culated upon  cutting  off  that  retreat  also  and  com- 
pelling the  surrender  of  an  army  superior  to  their 
own  in  numbers,  arms,  resources  and  everything  else 
except  fighting  ability. 

This  they  would  very  probably  have  accomplished 
if  McClellan  had  not  developed  in  answer  to  a  press- 
ing need  a  fighting  quality  which  he  had  not  before 
shown,  and  his  army  a  resolute  determination  to  en- 
dure punishment  such  as  none  but  the  best  of  veterans 
are  expected  to  show. 


The  Seven  Days'  Battles  403 

McClellan's  one  hope,  one  purpose,  was  to  march 
his  army  out  of  the  swamps  and  escape  from  the 
ceaseless  Confederate  assaults  to  a  point  on  James 
river  where  the  resistless  fire  of  the  gunboats  might 
protect  his  men  from  further  attack  and  give  them  a 
chance  to  rest.  To  that  end,  he  retreated  night  and 
day,  standing  at  bay  now  and  then  as  the  hunted  stag 
does,  and  fighting  desperately  for  the  poor  privilege 
of  running  away. 

And  the  splendid  fighting  of  his  men  was  a  tribute 
to  the  skill  and  genius  with  which  he  had  created  an 
effective  army  out  of  what  he  had  described  as  "regi- 
ments cowering  upon  the  banks  of  the  Potomac,  some 
perfectly  raw,  others  dispirited  by  recent  defeat, 
others  going  home."  Out  of  a  demoralized  and  disor- 
ganized mass  reinforced  by  utterly  untrained  civilians, 
McClellan  had  within  a  few  months  created  an  army 
capable  of  stubbornly  contesting  every  inch  of  ground 
even  while  effecting  a  retreat  the  very  thought  of 
which  might  well  have  disorganized  an  army.  For 
soldiers  in  retreat  do  not  usually  fight  as  soldiers  do 
when  advancing  upon  an  enemy.  They  are  apt  to  be 
filled  with  the  sentiment  of  hopelessness  which  retreat 
suggests  and  to  hesitate  to  risk  their  lives  in  contests 
that  seem  to  offer  no  adequate  return  for  sacrifice. 

If  McClellan  conspicuously  failed  as  an  energetic 
commander,  in  this  his  first  important  campaign,  he 
succeeded  at  any  rate  in  demonstrating  the  perfection 
of  that  work  of  organization  by  means  of  which  he 
had  created  the  splendid  Army  of  the  Potomac  out 
of  raw  recruits  and  panic-stricken  fugitives  from 
battle. 


404  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

At  Gaines's  Mill  they  gallantly  endured  a  loss  of 
no  less  than  9,000  men,  and  while  they  were  driven 
from  their  position  at  last,  they  lost  nothing  of  their 
morale,  but  were  ready  two  days  later  to  fight  an 
equally  determined  battle,  though  it  was  the  battle  of 
a  beaten  and  broken  army  which  had  been  driven  by 
force  out  of  a  supremely  advantageous  position  and 
was  now  seeking  safety  in  a  flight  that  knew  no 
ceasing  night  or  day,  except  now  and  then  a  pause  to 
offer  a  sullen  resistance  to  an  ever-present  and  press- 
ing foe,  and  to  ward  off  complete  destruction  by  the 
offer  of  battle  wherever  the  ground  gave  opportunity 
for  resistance. 

Here  was  McClellan's  reward;  here  was  his  glory. 
This  army  of  his  a  few  months  earlier  under  such  a 
succession  of  defeats  would  have  broken  into  panic- 
stricken  rout.  Thanks  solely  to  his  discipline  and  his 
dominant  influence,  it  now  endured  compulsory  and 
disastrous  retreat  with  fortitude  and  stubbornly  con- 
tested every  inch  of  the  blood-soaked  ground. 

It  outnumbered  Lee's  force  and  its  equipment  was 
immeasurably  superior  to  his.  Under  a  commander  of 
high  gift  for  field  work  it  might  perhaps  have  beaten 
Lee  and  forced  its  triumphant  way  into  Richmond. 
Under  the  commander  it  had  it  did  itself  great  honor 
by  retreating  in  good  order  and  stubbornly  resisting 
the  Confederate  advance  wherever  it  was  permitted 
to  do  so. 

McClellan  being  now  in  full  retreat  and  considering 
only  those  problems  which  related  to  escape,  aban- 
doned the  position  at  Fair  Oaks  and  posted  Sumner 
and  Heintzelman  at  Savage's  Station.     Their  sole 


The  Seven  Bays'  Battles  405 

function  was  to  guard  the  flank  of  the  hurriedly  re- 
treating Federal  army.  To  that  end  they  were  or- 
dered to  defend  the  position  at  Savage's  Station  until 
nightfall,  or,  in  other  words,  until  McClellan's  re- 
treating army  should  have  passed  that  point  in  its 
hurried  flight. 

Here  the  Confederates  under  Magruder  attacked 
with  fury  and  the  Federal  general  Heintzelman  was 
driven  into  retreat.  But  Sumner  heroically  held  his 
ground  until  nightfall,  thus  accomplishing  McClel- 
lan's purpose,  though  at  cost  of  a  fearful  loss  in 
killed  and  wounded.  He  was  so  hard  pressed  indeed 
that  when  he  retired  at  nightfall,  he  was  forced  to 
leave  all  his  wounded  in  the  enemy's  hands  and  make 
a  precipitate  retreat  to  avoid  the  capture  of  his  entire 
force. 

Fortunately  his  enemy  was  a  civilized  one,  so  that 
his  wounded  men,  left  in  their  hands,  were  as  tenderly 
cared  for  as  if  Federal  surgeons  had  had  them  in 
charge.  The  only  difl'erence  was  that  Federal  sur- 
geons had  all  possible  medicaments  and  surgical  appli- 
ances, while  the  Confederates,  by  reason  of  the  block- 
ade, lacked  many  life-saving  agents,  particularly  the 
quinine  which  men  wounded  after  long  campaigning 
in  the  Chickahominy  and  White  Oak  swamps  needed 
as  imperatively  as  a  shipwrecked  crew  needs  life-lines 
and  breeches-buoys.  The  war  was  so  far  civilized  that 
the  surgeons  on  either  side  eagerly  did  their  best  for 
such  of  the  enemy's  wounded  as  might  fall  into  their 
hands.  But  it  was  still  so  far  savage, — and  it  re- 
mained so  to  the  end — that  the  side  which  possessed 
a  navy  shut  out  from  the  other  as  contraband  of  war 


406  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

the  medicines  necessary  to  the  saving  of  human  life 
and  the  rescue  of  the  wounded  from  a  needless  death, 
as  resolutely  as  it  shut  out  gunpowder  itself.  In 
other  words,  the  blockade  was  to  this  extent  a  part  of 
that  savagery  which  makes  war  upon  the  sick  and 
wounded  and  other  non-combatants  as  determinedly 
as  it  does  upon  stalwart  men  with  guns  in  their  hands 
and  cartridge  boxes  strapped  around  their  waists. 
There  is  cruelly  no  room  for  doubt  that  during  the 
Seven  Days'  battles  thousands  of  gallant  fellows  on 
both  sides  were  buried  in  the  fetid  mud  of  those 
swamps,  who  might  have  been  saved,  had  the  world 
then  been  civilized  enough  for  the  Federals  to  let  the 
Confederates  have  the  quinine,  the  calomel  and  the 
opium  they  needed  for  the  salvation  of  the  lives  of 
those  who  could  fight  no  more,  whether  Federal  or 
Confederate  in  their  allegiance. 

No  nation  is  even  yet  civilized  enough  for  this. 
"War  is  all  Hell,"  said  General  Sherman,  and  its  hell- 
ishness  is  nowhere  so  aggressively  manifest  as  when  it 
denies  to  a  hard-pressed  adversary  the  medicines  nec- 
essary to  the  salvation  of  human  life,  the  rescue  from 
death  of  those  who  are  already  incapacitated,  either 
by  wounds  or  by  disease,  from  further  fighting.  It 
is  quite  legitimate  and  logical  to  forbid  the  sending  of 
food  supplies  to  your  enemy,  because  food  is  the  foun- 
dation of  every  army's  resisting  power.  But  when  a 
starving  army  surrenders,  as  Lee's  did  at  Appomat- 
tox, the  first  care  of  its  conqueror  is  to  issue  rations 
to  the  men  who  have  ceased  to  fight,  as  Grant  issued 
them  on  that  historic  occasion,  even  before  the  terms 
of  capitulation  could  be  written  out.    But  it  is  a  very 


The  Seven  Days'  Battles  407 

different  and  a  very  much  more  barbarous  thing  to 
deny  to  surgeons  in  the  field  the  means  of  saving  hu- 
man hfe  whether  the  subjects  of  such  Ufe-saving 
happen  to  belong  to  the  one  army  or  to  the  other. 
The  people  of  the  United  States  are  to-day  paying 
princely  sums  as  pensions  to  the  families  of  those  who 
died  under  Confederate  surgeons'  hands  simply  be- 
cause the  laws  and  usages  of  war  forbade  to  those 
surgeons  the  medicines  necessary  to  their  life-saving 
work,  and  treated  life-saving  appliances  as  they 
treated  gunpowder  and  arms,  as  contraband  of  war. 
Why  should  this  hideous  wrong  have  existed  after 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century?  Why  should 
it  continue  to  exist  at  the  dawn  of  the  twentieth?  Are 
we,  after  all,  only  savages  under  a  thin  veneer  of  pre- 
tended civilization? 

On  the  thirtieth  of  June  the  Confederates  again 
assailed  McClellan's  retreating  columns  at  Frazier's 
farm.  A  fearful  contest  ensued,  for  so  superbly  had 
McClellan  organized  and  disciplined  his  army  that 
even  after  days  of  disaster  and  depressing  retreat  it 
stood  ready  still  to  resist  and  to  fight  for  every  inch 
of  ground. 

Here  the  Confederates  confidently  expected  to 
overwhelm  and  capture  McClellan's  army,  compelling 
its  surrender.  And  there  is  small  doubt  that  such 
must  have  been  the  outcome  of  the  action  had  Lee's 
lieutenants  accomplished  that  which  he  had  set  them 
to  do.  But  Magruder  and  Huger  failed  Lee  at  the 
crisis.  It  was  his  plan  that  they  should  assail  the 
Federals  in  flank  with  all  possible  vigor,  while  Jack- 
son, Longstreet  and  A.  P.  Hill  should  press  them 


408         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

upon  the  rear  of  their  retreat  which  now  became  their 
front  for  purposes  of  battle.  The  destruction  of 
McClellan's  army  seemed  a  certainty.  But  neither 
Magruder  nor  Huger  arrived  in  time  to  make  Lee's 
plan  of  assault  successful.  There  was  a  bloody  battle, 
but  by  reason  of  the  delay  of  these  two  lieutenants  it 
was  an  abortive  one,  failing  utterly  to  accomplish  that 
final  and  decisive  overthrow  and  capture  of  Mc- 
Clellan's army  upon  which  Lee  had  reckoned  as  the 
crowning  achievement  of  this  Seven  Days'  campaign. 

The  failure  of  these  two  generals  to  fulfil  their 
obligations — a  failure  which  resulted  in  the  baffling 
of  Lee's  supreme  purpose  at  the  very  moment  when 
their  presence  must  have  given  him  quite  all  that  he 
desired  of  victory — ^might  well  have  been  made  the 
subject  of  an  inquest  by  court  martial  or  by  a  court  of 
inquiry.  But  as  Lee  in  the  exceeding  gentleness  of 
his  nature  omitted  to  order  any  such  inquest,  the  mat- 
ter presents  no  authoritative  basis  of  fact  on  which  the 
historian  may  rest  an  award  of  blame.  This  much, 
however,  seems  to  be  certain — that  if  Huger  and 
Magruder  had  done  what  Lee  had  ordered  them  to 
do,  and  what  they  might  easily  have  done,  McClellan's 
army  must  have  been  destroyed  or  captured  on  that 
thirtieth  day  of  June,  1862. 

As  it  was,  McClellan  fought  all  day  and  at  night 
resumed  his  retreat,  still  doggedly  intent  upon  that 
one  difficult  problem  of  "saving  this  army,"  concern- 
ing which  he  had  written  so  doubtfully  and  so  despair- 
ingly and  so  bitterly  in  his  heart-wrung  protest  to 
Secretary  Stanton. 

After  a  fearfully  bloody  struggle  the  Federal  army 


The  Seven  Days"  Battles  409 

was  able  during  the  night  to  retire  toward  Malvern 
Hill,  a  position  which  the  Confederates  could  not 
assail  without  exposing  themselves  to  the  destructive 
cross  fire  of  the  Federal  fleet  in  the  James  river. 

McClellan  had  now  been  completely  dislodged 
from  his  position  on  the  east  and  north  of  Richmond. 
He  had  been  defeated  in  battle  day  after  day,  and 
driven  out  of  his  fortifications  into  a  helpless  retreat 
to  the  cover  of  his  gunboats  in  the  James  river.  His 
base  of  supplies  at  White  House  had  been  utterly 
broken  up.  He  had  lost  in  this  series  of  battles  no 
less  than  15,249  men.  The  Confederates,  being  the 
assailants,  had  suffered  even  greater  losses. 

The  Confederates  at  this  point  made  one  disastrous 
mistake.  They  had  believed  that  McClellan  would  re- 
treat by  the  route  by  which  he  had  come,  and  in  that 
belief  they  had  remained  where  they  were  for  twenty- 
four  hours.  During  that  precious  time  McClellan 
had  moved  his  enormous  wagon  train  and  his  great 
herd  of  2,500  cattle  towards  his  new  base. 

At  White  House  General  Casey  loaded  all  the  sup- 
plies he  could  upon  transports  and  sent  them  to  the 
new  base.  But  he  was  obliged  to  burn  millions  of 
pounds  of  food  and  destroy  hundreds  of  tons  of  am- 
munition which  he  could  not  remove.  Trains  of 
freight  cars  were  loaded  with  food  and  ammunition 
and  deliberately  switched  off  the  railroad  tracks  and 
into  the  river  to  prevent  them  from  falling  into  the 
possession  of  the  Confederates. 

In  brief  McClellan's  defeat  was  disastrous  in  the 
extreme;  but  by  reason  of  the  failure  of  Lee's  lieu- 
tenants to  do  their  proper  part  at  the  critical  time 


410  History  of  the  Confederate  War 

the  Federal  commander  was  spared  the  humiliation  of 
a  surrender.  He  escaped  instead  to  Malvern  Hill 
after  a  succession  of  bloody  defeats  and  after  sacri- 
ficing the  greater  part  of  his  reserve  stores  of  food 
and  ammunition  at  what  he  had  established  as  a  secure 
base  of  supplies. 

It  is  not  easy  to  imagine  a  completer  or  more  dis- 
astrous defeat  than  this  of  the  Seven  Days,  or  an  en- 
forced retreat  more  humiliating.  Yet  at  the  last 
moment  McClellan  was  enabled,  by  the  mistake  or 
the  misconduct  of  Lee's  lieutenants,  to  escape  to 
Malvern  Hill,  under  cover  of  his  gunboats,  and  there 
Lee  mistakenly  assailed  him,  thus  giving  him,  at  the 
end  of  a  series  of  conspicuous  defeats,  the  appearance 
at  least  of  a  compensating  victory. 

Malvern  Hill  is  rather  a  high  plateau  than  a  hill  in 
the  proper  sense  of  the  term.  It  lies  about  sixty  feet 
above  the  surrounding  country.  It  is  a  mile  wide  and 
a  mile  and  a  half  long.  At  its  base  is  a  network  of 
streams  and  impassable  swamp  lands,  constituting  a 
natural  fortification  practically  impassable  to  any 
army  in  the  field  except  at  one  point  where  a  nar- 
row road  leads  up  the  hill.  The  plateau  lies  so  close 
to  the  James  river  that  gunboats  anchored  in  that 
stream  can  command  its  one  approach  with  deadly 
certainty. 

Here  McClellan  stood  at  bay.  Here  a  wise  direc- 
tion should  have  made  an  end  of  the  Confederate  pur- 
suit of  him.  To  assail  him  there  was  to  invite  needless 
slaughter  with  no  hope  of  any  result  commensurate 
with  the  inevitable  sacrifice  of  human  life. 

But  the  Confederates  were  flushed  with  a  week  of 


The  Seven  Days'  Battles  411 

continuous  victories,  and  they  hurled  themselves  reck- 
lessly upon  Malvern  Hill,  hoping  there  to  retrieve 
their  lost  opportunity  of  destroying  or  capturing  the 
army  that  a  week  earlier  had  besieged  and  threatened 
Richmond. 

The  assault  upon  such  a  position  ought  not  to  have 
been  made  at  all.  Still  worse,  it  was  blunderingly 
made.  The  Confederates  were  not  ready  to  bring 
their  whole  force  into  action  when  the  first  advance 
occurred,  or  in  any  wise  to  support  the  assailing  force. 
Seven  thousand  men,  with  six  guns,  charged  up  the 
slope.  There  were  thirty  guns  in  position  to  sweep 
them  away  as  with  a  broom,  and  many  times  seven 
thousand  men  to  resist  their  advance.  There  was  also 
the  terrific  fire  of  the  gunboats  to  tear  their  columns 
into  shreds  and  to  throw  their  men  into  confusion. 
Still  more  important  perhaps  was  the  fact  that  the 
Confederate  artillery  had  not  yet  been  organized  as 
a  separate  arm  of  the  service.  Each  brigade  had  its 
battery,  but  there  was  nowhere  any  authority  to  bring 
these  scattered  batteries  together  and  make  them  ef- 
fective by  massing  them.  Six  guns  in  the  presence 
of  thirty  were  quickly  put  out  of  action,  and  through- 
out the  day  there  was  a  like  disproportion,  due  to  the 
mistaken  system  which  assigned  batteries  to  brigades 
instead  of  organizing  the  whole  artillery  force  into  a 
single  arm  of  the  service  and  placing  each  corps  of  it 
under  a  commander  of  its  own  who  could  mass  it  at 
will  and  make  it  effective  by  concentration. 

McClellan  had  massed  his  artillery;  Lee  had  not 
massed  his.  The  result  was  that  McClellan's  artillery 
fire  quickly  dismounted  Lee's  guns  and  rendered  them 
useless. 


412         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

After  this  first  fruitless  assault  was  repelled,  there 
was  nothing  but  artillery  dueling  for  some  hours. 
It  was  not  until  late  in  the  afternoon  of  July  1  that 
Lee  was  ready  to  assail  his  enemy  with  his  entire  force. 
Then  there  was  a  strange  lack  of  concert.  One  divi- 
sion after  another  attacked  without  support  and  was 
beaten  back  for  want  of  it.  At  no  time  did  the  Con- 
federates hurl  their  whole  force  upon  their  enemies. 
They  fought  gallantly,  but  in  detail,  and  therefore 
without  effect. 

The  fighting  was  continued  till  nine  o'clock  in  the 
evening.  Its  net  result  was  that  the  Confederates  had 
failed  to  dislodge  McClellan  from  his  strong  position. 
But  they  had  so  nearly  accomplished  that  object  that 
JNIcClellan  dared  not  risk  another  day's  trial  of  the 
issue,  even  in  his  supremely  advantageous  position. 
He  withdrew  during  the  night  to  Harrison's  Landing 
under  cover  of  his  gunboats,  and  the  Seven  Days'  bat- 
tles were  done. 

No  military  operation  was  ever  more  dramatic  than 
this.  At  the  beginning  of  that  fateful  week  McClel- 
lan, with  about  120,000  men,  was  closely  besieging 
the  Confederate  capital.  His  heavy  guns  were  al- 
most within  shelling  distance  of  the  city,  and  an  army 
of  40,000  men  or  more,  was  marching  to  his  reinforce- 
ment. At  the  end  of  that  week's  fighting  the  broken 
remnant  of  his  army  was  thankfully  cowering  under 
cover  of  a  resistless  gunboat  fire,  with  siege  aban- 
doned, works  deserted,  millions  of  dollars  worth  of 
stores  destroyed,  and  such  a  record  of  daily  defeats 
as  falls  to  the  lot  of  few  armies  in  the  field. 

But  one  thing  had  been  demonstrated,  McClellan 


The  Seven  Days'  Battles  413 

had  made  an  army  out  of  the  exceedingly  raw  ma- 
terial furnished  to  his  hand.  He  had  converted  "a 
mere  collection  of  regiments  cowering  on  the  banks 
of  the  Potomac,  some  perfectly  raw,  others  dispirited 
by  recent  defeat,  some  going  home,"  into  an  army 
capable  of  meeting  and  fighting  Lee  at  Mechanics- 
ville,  Frazier's  Farm,  Gaines's  Mills,  Savage's  Sta- 
tion and  Malvern  Hill. 

Henceforth  the  war  was  to  be  fought  out  by 
armies  of  seasoned  soldiers  and  not  by  raw  recruits 
and  panic-stricken  volunteers. 

This  great  series  of  battles  had  cost  the  Confeder- 
ates about  19,000  men  and  the  Federals  15,249.  It 
had  made  an  end  of  the  second  attempt  to  con- 
quer Richmond  and  in  that  way  to  finish  the  war.  It 
had  left  the  Confederates  as  conspicuously  victorious 
in  the  east  as  they  were  conspicuously  defeated  in  the 
west, 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

The  Second  Manassas  Campaign 

Lee  had  now  accomplished  the  first  of  his  two  pur- 
poses. He  had  raised  McClellan's  siege  of  Rich- 
mond. He  had  not  succeeded  in  capturing  or  destroy- 
ing McClellan's  army  as  he  had  hoped  to  do,  but  he 
had  completely  baffled  its  endeavor.  He  had  driven 
it  out  of  its  strongly  fortified  positions.  He  had  kept 
it  in  an  enforced  and  continuous  retreat  for  a  whole 
week.  He  had  compelled  it  to  fight  losing  battles  by 
day,  and  to  spend  the  nights  in  painful  and  exhaust- 
ing efforts  to  escape,  which  McClellan  himself,  as  his 
grieved  and  angry  official  reports  clearly  showed,  re- 
garded as  efforts  of  extremely  doubtful  outcome. 

McClellan's  campaign  against  Richmond  had  dis- 
astrously failed.  He  had  saved  his  army  indeed  with- 
out a  repetition  of  the  Manassas  panic,  but  he  had 
been  baffled  in  all  his  purposes  and  driven  for  seven 
days  and  nights  like  a  hunted  stag  seeking  safety  in 
flight.  All  his  combinations  had  come  to  naught,  all 
his  elaborately  constructed  earthworks  had  failed  him 
even  as  means  of  holding  his  position  as  an  assailant. 
All  his  siege  guns  had  proved  of  no  avail. 

But  he  had  organized  a  great  army  so  well  disci- 
plined that  it  could  fight  with  determination,  lose  with 
a  calm  mind,  and  retreat  before  a  pursuing  enemy 
without  losing  cohesion  or  falling  into  panic.     That 

414 


The  Second  Manassas  Campaign  415 

service  of  his  was  emphasized  during  all  the  brilliant 
future  history  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  It  made 
itself  manifest  at  Antietam,  at  Fredericksburg,  at 
Chancellorsville,  at  Gettysburg,  and  later  at  the  Wil- 
derness, Spottsylvania,  Cold  Harbor  and  Petersburg. 
But  with  all  his  splendid  ability  as  an  engineer,  and 
his  still  more  conspicuous  gifts  as  an  organizer  of  raw 
material  into  an  effective  force,  McClellan  was  mani- 
festly unfit  to  command  an  expedition  in  which  he 
must  try  his  wits  against  the  genius  of  Robert  E.  Lee 
and  Stonewall  Jackson.  A  historian  most  friendly  to 
him.  Dr.  Rossiter  Johnson,  has  written:  "He  was  an 
accomplished  engineer  and  a  gigantic  adjutant,  but 
hardly  the  general  to  be  sent  against  an  army  that 
could  move  and  a  commander  that  could  think." 

Lee  had  driven  a  splendid  army,  nearly  double  his 
own  in  numbers,  to  a  position  where  it  lay  cowering 
on  the  river-bank,  under  protection  of  the  gunboats 
and  no  longer  depending  upon  its  own  prowess  even 
for  self-defense. 

But  Lee  had  not  destroyed  McClellan's  army,  or 
captured  it,  or  even  weakened  it  in  any  conspicuous 
degree.  That  army,  splendidly  organized,  superbly 
equipped,  and  strengthened  rather  than  weakened  in 
morale,  lay  securely  at  rest  on  the  James  river,  within 
easy  striking  distance  of  Richmond.  There  was  no 
knowing  at  what  moment  McClellan  might  hurl  it 
again  upon  Richmond  or  upon  that  commanding  key 
to  Richmond — ^the  Petersburg  position.  In  the  hands 
of  a  capable  commander  McClellan's  army  would  at 
this  time  have  been  a  more  serious  menace  than  ever 
to  the  Confederate  capital,  for  it  now  had  an  abso- 


416         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

lutely  secure  and  unassailable  base  of  operations,  while 
its  fighting  quality  had  been  improved  rather  than 
impaired  by  its  seven  days  of  battling. 

Thus  the  second  part  of  Lee's  military  problem  re- 
mained still  to  be  solved,  and  it  was  very  greatly  the 
more  difficult  part — the  part  that  most  imperatively 
called  for  the  exercise  of  strategic  genius  of  a  high 
order.  He  must  prevent  a  junction  between  Pope's 
army,  which  was  now  advancing  by  way  of  Manassas 
Junction,  and  McClellan's  force  on  the  James  river. 
He  must  overthrow  Pope  on  the  one  hand  and  compel 
McClellan  to  retire  on  the  other. 

For  the  accomplishment  of  this  Lee  relied  confi- 
dently upon  the  positively  morbid  dread  of  the  loss 
of  Washington  which  at  that  time  filled  the  Northern 
mind  and  inspired  every  order  given  at  the  Federal 
capital.  His  problem  was  to  put  Washington  in  peril 
without  losing  Richmond,  and  thus  to  compel  the 
withdrawal  of  McClellan's  army  for  the  defense  of 
the  Federal  capital  and  to  meet  a  threatened  invasion 
of  the  North. 

To  that  end  Lee  boldly  risked  a  division  of  his  force 
as  he  afterwards  did  on  several  occasions  in  presence 
of  an  enemy  who  already  outnumbered  him. 

On  the  thirteenth  of  July  he  detached  Jackson,  with 
his  own  and  Ewell's  commands,  to  operate  against 
Pope  in  northern  Virginia,  himself  holding  Richmond 
with  the  rather  scant  remainder  of  his  army. 

Jackson  moved  at  once  to  Orange  Court  House, 
confronting  Pope.  This  movement  threatened  Wash- 
ington only  in  a  rather  remote  way  and  not  very 
seriously,  but  it  had  the  desired  effect.     A  part  of 


The  Second  Manassas  Campaign  417. 

McClellan's  force  was  at  once  withdrawn  from  the 
position  at  Harrison's  Landing  and  sent  by  water  to 
the  national  capital  as  a  reserve  and  reinforcement  for 
Pope  in  case  that  general  should  be  beaten  in  the  field. 

Promptly — near  the  end  of  July — Lee  sent  A.  P. 
Hill's  corps  to  Jackson,  and,  thus  strengthened,  Jack- 
son pushed  his  column  across  the  Rapidan  river  and 
encountered  a  part  of  Pope's  forces  at  Cedar  Moun- 
tain on  the  ninth  of  August.  The  action  was  not  a 
decisive  one,  but  it  served  Lee's  purpose  of  compell- 
ing the  early  and  complete  withdrawal  of  McClellan 
from  his  threatening  position  below  Richmond. 

Two  days  after  the  battle  at  Cedar  Mountain  Jack- 
son retired  to  the  south  bank  of  the  river  to  await  the 
reinforcements  which  Lee  was  sending  to  him  as  rap- 
idly as  McClellan's  withdrawal  rendered  it  measurably 
prudent  for  him  to  deplete  the  army  defending  Rich- 
mond. 

By  August  14,  Lee  had  transferred  practically 
all  of  his  army  from  Richmond  to  the  line  of  the 
Rapidan,  leaving  only  a  meager  garrison  at  the  Con- 
federate capital.  On  that  day  he  joined  the  army 
and  assumed  direct  personal  command. 

Pope  was  a  good  and  active  officer,  unfortunately 
given  to  vainglorious  boasting.  He  dated  his  orders 
"Headquarters  in  the  saddle.  Army  in  the  field,"  and 
set  forth  in  them  the  assertion  that  he  had  so  far  seen 
only  the  backs  of  the  rebels.  He  announced  his  policy 
in  the  phrase,  "bayonets  to  the  front,  spades  to  the 
rear."  In  brief,  he  jauntily  and  with  ridiculous  boast- 
ings, undertook  to  meet  one  of  the  finest  fighting 
forces  that  had  ever  been  organized  in  the  world, 

1-97 


418         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

commanded  by  the  most  brilliant  and  the  ablest  gen- 
eral of  the  South.  He  thus  prepared  for  himself  a 
peculiar  humiliation  in  the  event  of  defeat,  stripping 
himself  in  advance  of  all  excuses  and  all  pleas  in 
abatement  of  failure,  and  in  advance  minimizing  the 
glory  of  victory  should  he  succeed  in  overcoming  Lee. 

There  was  no  more  ridiculous  spectacle  seen  from 
beginning  to  end  of  the  war  than  this.  It  invited  all 
the  wits  of  the  newspapers  to  facile  jestings,  and 
when  Pope's  failure  was  complete,  one  of  them  said,  in 
reference  to  his  "headquarters  in  the  saddle"  phrase, 
that  he  had  "placed  his  headquarters  where  his  hind- 
quarters ought  to  have  been." 

Nevertheless,  General  John  Pope  was  a  very  able 
and  a  very  enterprising  officer,  as  he  had  demon- 
strated at  the  West.  He  knew  how  to  handle  an  army 
effectively,  and  he  had  an  army  of  great  effectiveness 
under  his  command,  with  seasoned  and  battle-trained 
reinforcements  coming  to  him  every  hour  from  Mc- 
Clellan's  splendidly  behaving  force.  He  boldly  chal- 
lenged Lee's  advance  and  baffled  it  for  a  time.  He 
had  all  that  could  be  imagined  of  equipment  and  of 
limitless  supplies.  Had  he  been  even  in  a  measurable 
degree  the  commanding  military  genius  that  he  con- 
fidently believed  himself  to  be,  he  must  have  ham- 
mered Lee's  forces  into  confusion  at  the  first  en- 
counter and  driven  the  great  Confederate  back  to  his 
half -hopeless  task  of  defending  Richmond  behind  a 
barrier  of  earthworks.  The  result  of  the  encounter 
was  quite  other  than  this,  as  we  shall  see. 

Having  at  last  brought  up  a  force  slightly  superior 
to  Pope's,  Lee's  plan  was  to  attack  as  quickly  as  pos- 


The  Second  Manassas  Campaign  419 

sible  and  before  Pope  should  be  strengthened  by  the 
heavy  columns  of  reinforcements  that  were  hurrying 
to  his  support  from  McClellan's  army  and  from  every 
other  quarter  whence  reinforcements  could  be  drawn. 
But  before  Lee's  dispositions  for  attack  could  be  com- 
pleted, Pope  penetrated  his  design  and  fell  back  to 
the  stronger  line  of  the  Rappahannock. 

The  two  armies  confronted  each  other  with  that 
river  between.  Lee  moved  by  his  left  flank  up  the 
river  while  Pope  kept  pace  with  him,  alertly  meeting 
him  at  every  available  point  of  crossing,  with  his 
army  in  discouragingly  strong  positions,  and  pre- 
pared to  resist  to  the  utmost  any  attempt  the  Confed- 
erate general  might  make  to  force  a  crossing. 

To  Lee  this  was  a  lamentable  waste  of  time,  while 
to  Pope  it  was  a  matter  of  hourly  gain  in  strength. 
For  while  Lee  already  had  with  him  all  the  forces 
that  he  could  hope  to  concentrate  in  that  quarter,  regi- 
ments and  brigades  and  divisions  were  constantly 
pouring  forward  from  Washington  to  strengthen 
Pope's  command. 

Finally  Lee  succeeded  in  outwitting  his  adversary. 
At  a  place  near  Warrenton  Springs  he  came  to  a 
halt  and  made  ostentatious  demonstrations  of  an  in- 
tention to  force  a  crossing  of  the  river  at  that  point. 
Pope  stood  ready  to  meet  him,  with  all  his  army 
strongly  posted,  and  with  hourly  strengthening  field 
works  to  make  the  assault  of  the  Confederates  the 
more  difficult  and  the  more  perilous. 

But  Lee  in  fact  had  no  intention  of  joining  battle 
on  such  unequal  conditions  and  risking  the  fate  of  his 
campaign  upon  his  ability  to  carry  such  a  position,  so 


420         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

strongly  defended.  While  occupying  Pope's  atten- 
tion there  with  a  simulated  purpose  of  forcing  the 
fords  he  resorted  to  that  tactical  device  which  served 
him  so  often  and  so  well  later  in  the  war.  He  de- 
tached Jackson,  sending  him  with  a  strong  force  to 
march  around  Bull  Run  Mountain,  cross  through 
Thoroughfare  Gap,  and  threaten  Pope's  depots  at 
Manassas  and  his  lines  of  communication  north  and 
south  of  that  now  historic  point. 

Jackson's  movement  was  completely  concealed  and 
altogether  successful.  On  the  twenty-sixth  of  Au- 
gust he  fell  like  a  thunderbolt  upon  Pope's  depots  at 
Manassas  and  captured  them.  Meanwhile,  under 
Lee's  orders,  Longstreet  was  following  Jackson,  and 
on  the  twenty-ninth  he  formed  a  junction  with  him  at 
or  near  the  point  where  the  first  important  battle  of 
the  war  had  been  fought. 

But  Pope  had  not  been  idle  or  inattentive  during 
these  pregnant  days.  As  soon  as  Jackson's  descent 
upon  his  supply  depots  was  made  known  to  him,  he 
abandoned  his  position  on  the  Rappahannock  and  fell 
back  to  try  conclusions  on  the  historic  field  of  Man- 
assas. Having  received  still  further  reinforcement 
from  McClellan,  his  army  now  slightly  exceeded 
Lee's  in  numbers  and  considerably  exceeded  it  in 
other  elements  of  strength.  Accordingly,  being  a 
commander  of  great  enterprise  and  vigor,  he  at  once 
assailed  Lee  at  Manassas  in  full  force.  For  two  days 
he  hurled  his  heavy  battalions  upon  the  Confederates, 
severely  taxing  and  testing  their  resisting  power. 
For  these  were  armies  of  veteran,  battle-seasoned  sol- 
diers that  were  fighting  each  other  now,  and  not  the 


The  Second  Manassas  Campaign  421 

raw  levies  of  a  year  before.  They  fought  with  order 
and  system  and  their  minds  were  open  to  no  such 
panic  impulses  as  those  that  had  put  McDowell  to 
rout  and  reduced  what  had  been  placed  under  his  com- 
mand as  an  army  to  the  condition  of  an  insanely 
frightened  mob. 

But  on  the  other  hand  the  Southerners  were  com- 
manded now  not  by  a  pair  of  inexperienced  ex-cap- 
tains of  the  Engineer  Corps,  but  by  Robert  E.  Lee 
himself,  with  Stonewall  Jackson  and  James  Long- 
street  and  R.  S.  Ewell  and  the  two  Hills  for  his  lieu- 
tenants. 

The  attack  was  determined;  the  defense  obstinate; 
the  fighting  heroic;  the  result  bloody  in  an  extreme 
degree. 

The  field  was  contested  for  two  days  with  a  heroic 
stubbornness  on  either  side  which  showed  clearly  how 
great  a  change  had  been  wrought  in  the  conditions  of 
the  war  by  the  disciplining  of  the  troops,  by  their  ex- 
perience in  the  brutally  bloody  work  of  war.  and  by 
the  training  such  experience  had  given  to  their  officers. 

The  end  of  it  was  that  Lee  drove  Pope  across  Bull 
Run  and  back  to  Centreville.  Immediately  he  fol- 
lowed up  his  victory  as  Johnston  and  Beauregard  had 
not  done  a  year  before  on  the  same  field.  He  turned 
the  position  at  Centreville  and  compelled  Pope  to 
retreat  hurriedly,  but  in  tolerably  good  order,  upon 
Washington. 

It  was  in  this  conflict  that  a  gallant  and  hard-fight- 
ing Federal  general,  Fitz-John  Porter,  had  the  ill 
luck  to  encounter  criticism  which  resulted  in  his  trial 
by  court  martial  and  his  dismissal  from  the  army  in 


422         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

disgrace.  It  was  not  until  many  years  afterwards 
that  the  actual  facts  of  the  fighting  were  clearly  and 
convincingly  made  known  with  the  result  of  relieving 
General  Porter  of  the  stigma  he  had  so  long  unjustly 
borne,  and  rehabilitating  his  high  reputation  in  the 
minds  of  his  countrymen. 

The  story  of  it  all  is  one  of  pitiable  and  long-con- 
tinued suffering  under  misapprehension  and  false- 
hood. It  is  fully  told  in  other  publications  than  this, 
and  it  has  no  proper  place  except  that  of  casual  men- 
tion, in  a  simple  chronicle  of  events  such  as  the  pres- 
ent work  is. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

Lee^s  First  Invasion  of  Maryland 

Lee  seemed  now  to  be  master  of  the  situation  so 
far  at  least  as  determining  when  and  where  the  fight- 
ing should  be  done.  Within  the  brief  space  of  two 
months  he  had  raised  the  siege  of  Richmond,  man- 
euvered McClellan  completely  out  of  Virginia,  and 
overthrown  Pope  in  a  two-days'  battle  compelling 
that  commander  to  retire  behind  the  defenses  of 
Washington. 

There  remained  no  Federal  army  in  Virginia. 
There  was  no  further  defensive  campaigning  to  be 
done  there.  Lee  decided  at  once  upon  an  aggressive 
operation  of  the  utmost  boldness.  He  determined  to 
transfer  the  seat  of  war  to  the  regions  north  of  the 
Potomac,  to  threaten  and  if  possible  to  capture  the 
Federal  capital,  either  by  direct  approach  or  by  the 
conquest  of  Baltimore,  which  would  isolate  Washing- 
ton and  compel  its  abandonment. 

In  order  to  understand  the  importance  of  the  issues 
of  such  a  campaign  as  Lee  now  planned,  the  reader 
must  bear  in  mind  that  Mr.  Lincoln's  government 
was  at  that  time  subject  to  a  "fire  from  the  rear;"  that 
a  very  large  part  of  the  Northern  people  sympathized 
with  the  South ;  that  a  still  larger  part  disapproved  of 
the  war  on  other  grounds  than  sympathy — grounds  of 
commercial  interest,  political  prejudice  and  the  like. 

423 


424         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

The  cost  of  carrying  on  the  struggle  had  already  be- 
come appalling  to  those  who  must  meet  it  by  the  pay- 
ment of  taxes.  The  desire  to  end  it,  and  the  convic- 
tion that  it  was  hopeless  of  the  results  proposed,  were 
widespread. 

Under  such  conditions  it  is  easily  obvious  that  if 
Lee  could  at  that  time  have  made  himself  master  of 
Washington  or  Baltimore  or  both,  all  that  had  gone 
before  either  of  victory  or  of  defeat  would  have  been 
as  dust  in  the  balance.  It  would  have  been  next  to 
impossible,  under  such  circumstances  for  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's administration  to  prosecute  the  struggle  fur- 
ther. The  national  credit,  already  seriously  impaired, 
would  have  been  destroyed.  Neither  men  nor  the  ma- 
terial necessaries  of  war  would  have  been  at  all 
adequately  forthcoming.  A  great  cry  must  in  that 
case  have  arisen  for  the  ending  of  the  struggle  by  the 
recognition  of  Southern  independence.  With  the  Con- 
federates in  possession  of  Washington  and  Baltimore 
every  foreign  power  would  have  joined  its  voice  to 
that  of  the  doubters  and  malcontents  at  home  in  a 
clamorous  demand  for  an  immediate  "peace  at  any 
price"  with  a  triumphant  foe. 

To  make  an  end  of  the  war  in  this  way  was  the  stu- 
pendous task  that  Lee  set  himself  to  accomplish. 
His  means  were  scanty  and  his  grounds  of  hope  for 
success  were  small.  But  "war  is  a  hazard  of  possi- 
bilities, probabilities,  luck  and  ill  luck,"  and  Lee  was 
a  commander  given  to  the  taking  of  stupendous  risks. 

He  had  but  45,000  men  with  whom  to  undertake 
a  task  for  which  a  quarter  of  a  million  would  not  have 
been  an  excessive  or  even  a  certainly  sufficient  force. 


Lee's  First  Invasion  of  Maryland         425 

But  those  45,000  men  were  soldiers  of  the  very  best 
quality  imaginable.  They  had  been  seasoned  by  se- 
vere campaigning.  They  had  accustomed  them- 
selves to  win  in  battle  against  heavy  odds.  They 
believed  in  their  leader  and  in  themselves  and  were 
ready  to  undertake  any  task  that  Lee  might  assign 
them.  They  were  stubborn  men  and  stalwart,  and 
experience  on  march  and  in  battle  had  made  them  as 
nearly  perfect  soldiers  as  the  world  has  anywhere  or 
at  any  time  known. 

On  such  an  expedition  as  that  which  Lee  planned, 
they  were  certain  to  be  opposed  by  armies  greatly 
exceeding  themselves  in  numbers  and  immeasurably 
superior  in  equipment  and  supplies.  But  they  were 
soldiers  of  that  sort  that  can  march  on  a  diet  of  hard 
tack  and  fight  on  no  diet  at  all. 

So  with  this  slender  force  Lee  crossed  the  Potomac, 
on  the  fifth  of  September,  abandoning  his  base  of 
supplies  and  his  communications  and  depending  for 
the  support  of  his  army  upon  such  foodstuffs  as  he 
could  secure  in  his  enemy's  country.  As  for  rein- 
forcements, he  perfectly  knew  that  there  were  none 
who  could  come  to  him. 

It  was  a  desperate  hazard,  conspicuously  Napo- 
leonic in  its  daring. 

Crossing  the  Potomac  on  the  fifth  of  September, 
Lee  established  himself  on  the  eighth  near  Frederick, 
Maryland,  a  point  at  which  his  presence  threatened 
Washington  and  Baltimore  about  equally.  And  both 
those  cities  must  be  guarded  against  his  advance,  the 
direction  of  which  was  of  course  uncertain.  The  cap- 
ture of  either  city  would  mean  the  speedy  surrender 
of  the  other. 


426         ^History  of^  the  Confederate  War 

To  meet  this  danger  the  Federal  Administration 
hurriedly  called  to  Washington  every  regiment  and 
brigade  it  could  in  any  wise  command.  It  united  the 
armies  of  McClellan  and  Pope  and  reinforced  them 
with  every  regiment  that  could  be  drawn  from  other 
quarters.  It  restored  McClellan  to  command — for 
he  had  been  temporarily  removed  in  consequence  of 
his  disastrous  defeat  at  Richmond — and  set  him  the 
task  of  defending  the  National  capital  by  meeting 
and  crushing  Lee  in  the  field.  If  Lee  had  com- 
manded an  army  of  half  a  million  men  instead  of  the 
meager  45,000  actually  under  his  orders,  the  alarm 
could  scarcely  have  been  greater  or  the  preparations 
to  meet  him  more  elaborate. 

President  Lincoln  visited  McClellan  in  person  and 
asked  him  to  resume  command  of  the  combined 
armies.    McClellan  accepted  the  commission. 

Accomplished  soldier  that  he  was,  he  saw  clearly 
that  the  "objective"  of  his  campaign  must  be  the 
crushing  of  Lee  and  the  enforced  retreat  of  the  Con- 
federates to  the  southern  side  of  the  Potomac.  To 
that  end  McClellan  desired  to  employ  the  utmost 
force  within  call.  He  had  about  70,000  men  against 
Lee's  45,000,  but  he  urgently  asked  for  the  11,000  ad- 
ditional men  who  were  guarding  Harper's  Ferry  and 
Martinsburg.  He  asked  that  those  untenable  posi- 
tions should  be  abandoned  and  their  defenders  added 
to  the  already  superior  force  with  which  he  was  to  try 
conclusions  again  with  the  masterful  adversary  who 
had  so  conspicuously  defeated  him  before  Richmond. 

But  General  Halleck  was  now  in  chief  command 
and  he  refused  this  request. 


Lee's  First  Invasion  of  Maryland         427 

His  refusal  to  order  the  evacuation  of  the  two  un- 
tenable positions  and  to  add  their  important  garri- 
sons to  McClellan's  force,  seriously  embarrassed  Lee 
and  contributed,  in  an  indirect  but  effective  way,  to 
the  defeat  of  those  purposes  with  which  the  Confed- 
erate chieftain  had  undertaken  his  hazardous  cam- 
paign. 

Lee  had  assumed,  quite  as  a  matter  of  course,  that 
upon  his  passage  of  the  Potomac,  Martinsburg  and 
Harper's  Ferry  would  be  evacuated,  being  obviously 
untenable.  But  in  fact  they  were  not  abandoned. 
So  Lee  was  compelled  to  pause  and  to  send  Jackson 
back  to  the  south  side  of  the  river  to  secure  control  of 
positions  that  commanded  his  own  only  secure  line  of 
retreat  in  case  of  disaster. 

This  caused  a  very  serious  delay  in  Lee's  opera- 
tions, and  in  such  a  campaign  of  aggression,  prompti- 
tude and  swiftness  are  all  important  to  the  accom- 
plishment of  desired  results. 

Jackson  went  back  across  the  river  to  assail  Har- 
per's Ferry  from  the  South.  In  the  meanwhile  Mc- 
Laws,  Walker  and  D.  H.  Hill  seized  and  held  re- 
spectively Maryland  Heights,  Loudon  Heights  and 
Boonesboro  Pass,  while  Lee  with  the  remainder  of 
his  now  dangerously  divided  army  advanced  to 
Hagerstown  in  search  of  food  supplies. 

Jackson  did  his  part  of  the  work  perfectly,  as  it 
was  his  custom  to  do.  He  drove  his  enemy  out  of 
Martinsburg  and  captured  Harper's  Ferry  with 
11,500  prisoners,  seventy-three  serviceable  guns  and 
important  stores. 

But  in  the  meanwhile  Lee's  army  had  been  scat- 


428         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

tered  in  a  very  perilous  way,  and  in  his  anxiety  for 
its  reconcentration,  he  wrote  out  an  order,  giving  in 
detail  his  instructions  to  his  several  subordinates. 

A  copy  of  this  order  somehow  fell  into  McClellan's 
hands.  It  clearly  revealed  to  him  Lee's  divided  and 
scattered  condition,  and  for  once  in  his  life  McClellan 
hurried.  If  he,  with  70,000  men,  could  manage  to 
attack  in  detail  the  several  widely  separated  frag- 
ments of  Lee's  army  which  had  now  been  reduced  by 
casualties  to  less  than  a  total  of  40,000,  surely  he  must 
win. 

Accordingly  he  hurriedly  pushed  forward,  hoping 
to  carry  Turner's  and  Crampton's  Gaps  in  the  South 
Mountain  before  Lee  could  concentrate  for  their 
defense. 

He  was  a  trifle  too  late,  however,  and  a  stubborn 
defense  was  made  there  on  the  fourteenth,  giving  Lee 
time  to  bring  up  the  remainder  of  his  forces  for 
the  decisive  battle  at  Sharpsburg  or  Antietam,  as  the 
action  is  variously  called  at  the  South  and  at  the 
North.  McClellan  finally  carried  the  gaps  at  cost  of 
a  loss  of  2,000  men — the  Confederates  losing  a  like 
number. 

But  in  the  meanwhile  McClellan  had  lost  all  the 
strategic  advantage  that  he  was  striving  for.  It  had 
been  his  hope  to  push  his  columns  through  the  gaps — 
as  he  might  have  done  twenty- four  hours  earlier  with- 
out serious  resistance — and  to  occupy  commanding 
positions  between  Lee's  widely  scattered  forces,  from 
which,  with  his  vastly  superior  numbers  he  might  con- 
quer them  in  detail,  probably  compelling  Lee's  sur- 
render as  a  part  of  the  price  exacted. 


Lee's  First  Invasion  of  Maryland         429 

But  McClellan  was  twenty-four  hours  late.  He 
therefore  had  to  fight  all  day  in  order  to  force  his 
way  through  passes  that  a  day  earlier  had  been  prac- 
tically open  to  him. 

These  actions  were  fought  on  the  fourteenth  of 
September,  1862.  They  were  quite  separate  in  their 
strategy  and  action,  but  they  are  classed  together  in 
history  as  the  Battle  of  South  Mountain.  The 
struggle  at  both  points  was  a  fierce  one  and  the  casu- 
alties were  heavy  on  either  side.  At  the  end  of  it  all 
McClellan  held  the  passes  and  was  free  to  push  his 
army  through  them.  To  that  extent  he  had  won  a 
victory.  But  by  his  stout  defense  Lee  had  gained  the 
time  he  so  badly  needed  in  which  to  bring  his  scattered 
forces  together  for  the  decisive  struggle,  and  as  that 
was  his  sole  object  at  the  time,  he  justly  felt  that  he 
had  accomplished  the  purpose  with  which  he  had  un- 
dertaken the  battle. 

Lee  promptly  prepared  himself  for  the  decisive 
struggle.  Retiring  behind  Antietam  Creek,  he  took 
up  a  strong  position  and  awaited  McClellan's  assault. 
He  had  by  this  time  an  army  of  less  than  38,000  men 
with  which  to  meet  McClellan's  70,000  or  75,000— for 
reinforcements  were  hourly  coming  to  the  Federal 
commander,  and  none  to  the  Confederate. 

This  defensive  battle  was  not  at  all  what  the  Con- 
federate general  had  hoped  for  or  intended.  He  had 
been  baffled  of  his  purposes  by  adverse  circumstances. 
Had  his  enemy  promptly  evacuated  Harper's  Ferry 
as  he  had  expected  and  as  McClellan  had  urged,  Lee 
would  have  pushed  on  towards  Washington  or  Bal- 
timore, giving  battle  as  the  assailant  wherever  his 


430         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

march  might  have  been  opposed.  The  necessity  of 
pausing  to  reduce  Harper's  Ferry  had  delayed  him 
during  precious  days,  during  which  McClellan's  ad- 
vance had  completely  changed  the  aspect  of  the  cam- 
paign. Instead  of  advancing  to  conquer  Washing- 
ton or  Baltimore,  Lee  fell  back  into  a  defensive  posi- 
tion, there  to  meet  an  army  nearly  or  quite  twice  as 
large  as  his  own.  In  the  meanwhile  the  necessity  of 
living  upon  the  country  had  completely  demoralized 
those  "lewd  fellows  of  the  baser  sort,"  who  constitute 
a  pestilently  important  contingent  in  every  fighting 
force.  Men  were  away  raiding  chicken  coops  when 
they  should  have  been  in  line  with  guns  in  their  hands. 
Straggling  was  general  beyond  precedent,  so  that 
Lee  declared  that  his  army  was  "ruined"  by  it,  while 
D.  H.  Hill  said  in  his  report  of  operations  that  "Had 
all  our  stragglers  been  up  McClellan's  army  would 
have  been  completely  crushed  or  annihilated.  Thou- 
sands of  thievish  poltroons  had  kept  away  from  sheer 
cowardice." 

But  the  fact  stares  us  in  the  face  that  McClellan 
had  under  his  command  quite  all  of  70,000  men  and 
probably  more,  while  Lee  had  at  most  considerably 
less  than  40,000, — and  as  both  armies  were  com- 
posed of  seasoned  soldiers  who  had  fought  before, 
it  is  by  no  means  safe  to  say  that  if  this  or  if  that 
had  been  changed  the  result  would  have  been  other 
than  it  was.  With  an  "if,"  it  is  easy  to  demonstrate 
anything. 

The  simple  facts  are  that  on  the  seventeenth  of 
September,  1862,  the  two  armies  met  on  Antietam 
Creek  in  front  of  Sharpsburg,  that  they  fought  all 


Lee's  First  Invasion  of  Maryland         431 

day  with  high  courage  and  desperate  determination 
on  both  sides ;  that  the  Federals  lost,  by  official  report, 
12,469  men,  while  the  Confederate  loss,  never  accur- 
ately reported,  was  estimated  at  between  9,000  and 
10,000  men;  that  at  the  end  of  the  struggle  each 
army  held  the  position  it  had  occupied  at  the  begin- 
ning, neither  having  yielded  position  to  the  other. 

So  far  were  both  reluctant  to  renew  the  struggle 
that  they  lay  still,  facing  each  other  during  the  whole 
of  the  next  day,  neither  side  firing  a  gun,  and  neither 
undertaking  a  maneuver  of  any  kind. 

That  was  what  is  technically  called  a  drawn  battle, 
a  battle  in  which  neither  army  can  claim  advantage 
over  the  other.  And  in  fact  that  was  the  exact  situ- 
ation. Lee's  men  prided  themselves  upon  the  fact 
that  they  had  held  their  own  against  nearly  or  quite 
twice  their  numbers,  McClellan's  men  were  proud  to 
think  that  they  had  not  been  beaten  as  other  armies 
had  been  by  this  phenomenal  fighting  machine  of 
Robert  E.  Lee's;  that  they  had  not  been  flanked  or 
caught  in  the  rear,  or  in  any  other  way  outmaneuvered 
or  outfought,  but  had  been  able  to  hold  their  own 
throughout  the  day  and  to  maintain  their  ground 
when  the  day  was  done. 

Considered  by  itself  this  was  in  fact  a  drawn  battle. 
But  considered  more  broadly  in  its  relation  to  the 
general  course  of  the  war,  it  was  very  clearly  a  defeat 
for  Lee,  and  a  victory  for  his  adversary.  It  made  a 
final  end  of  the  Confederate  general's  scheme  of  in- 
vasion. It  baffled  all  of  his  cherished  purposes.  It 
rendered  utterly  futile  the  plans  in  pursuit  of  whicK 
he  had  crossed  the  Potomac.    It  ended  his  hope  of 


432         History  of  the  Confederate  War 

winning  the  war  by  the  conquest  of  Washington  or 
Baltimore,  or  both.  It  referred  military  operations 
again  to  Virginia,  relieving  all  states  north  of  the 
Pcrt:omac  of  their  share  in  the  sufferings  incident  to 
battles  and  campaigning. 

Lee,  being  too  badly  crippled  to  continue  his  cam- 
paign, retired  after  a  day's  rest,  to  Virginia.  Mc- 
Clellan,  being  too  badly  hurt  to  risk  another  contest, 
declined  to  follow  him  or  in  any  way  to  interfere  with 
his  purposes. 

The  net  results  of  Lee's  campaign  were  that  he  had 
captured  11,500  prisoners  at  Harper's  Ferry  togeth- 
er with  seventy-three  guns  and  a  vast  store  of  food 
and  munitions.  He  had  inflicted  upon  his  enemy  in 
battle  a  loss  of  12,469  men.  On  the  other  hand  he 
had  suffered  a  loss  of  9,000  or  10,000  men;  his  army 
was  reduced  to  30,000  or  less,  and  the  strategic  pur- 
pose of  the  campaign  had  utterly  failed.  He  had  en- 
countered no  disaster,  but  the  expedition  undertaken 
with  high  hopes  and  positively  Napoleonic  purposes 
had  come  to  naught. 

Then  occurred  one  of  those  prolonged  and  unex- 
plainable  pauses  in  the  war  to  which  wondering  refer- 
ence has  been  made  in  an  earlier  chapter  of  this  work. 
With  all  the  superb  autumn  weather  before  them — 
the  very  best  campaigning  weather  known  to  Virginia 
— neither  side  did  anything  or  tried  to  do  anything. 
Lee  remained  in  the  neighborhood  of  Winchester  for 
a  month,  at  once  inactive  and  unmolested.  Then  he 
slowly  retired  to  Fredericksburg,  where  he  fortified 
himself  to  meet  the  advance  which  Burnside,  who  had 
succeeded  McClellan,  seemed  to  threaten  by  taking 


Lee's  First  Invasion  of  Maryland         433 

up  a  position  at  Acquia  Creek,  seven  miles  or  so  in 
Fredericksburg's  front. 

But  the  battle  at  Sharpsburg  or  Antietam,  had  oc- 
curred on  the  seventeenth  of  September  and  it  was  not 
until  near  the  middle  of  December  that  either  of  these 
two  armies  again  challenged  the  other  to  a  contest  of 
arms. 


End  of  Vol.  I. 


1-82 


14  DAY  USE 

RBTURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


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